Preamble

The House met at Half past Two o'Clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

Oral Answers to Questions — PENSIONS (ALLOWANCES)

Mr. Symonds: asked the Minister of Pensions the number of unemployability supplements, constant attendance allowances, and allowances for lowered standard of occupation now in payment, and the number in payment with the maximum rates then payable, at the correspon-

ALLOWANCES IN PAYMENT AT 30TH SEPTEMBER




1945
1946
1947
1948
1949


Unemployability Supplement:


Numbers
…
5,830
6,470
6,960
9,590
15,950


Maximum weekly rate
…
20s.
20s.
20s.
30s.
30s.


Constant Attendance Allowance:


Numbers
…
2,690
3,210
4,550
5,580
7,610


Maximum weekly rate
…
*20s.
40s.
40s.
40s.
40s.


Allowance for Lowered Standard of Occupation:


Numbers
…
—
810
1,780
4,320
15,310


Maximum weekly rate
…
—
11s. 3d.
11s. 3d.
20s.
20s.


*The maximum rate of Constant Attendance Allowance for officer pensioners before 1946 was £100 a year. In regard to the other items in the above table the maximum rates for officers were the annual equivalents of the weekly rates shown in the table.

Mr. Symonds: asked the Minister of Pensions what is the annual value of the payments which are now made by his Department to a 100 per cent. disabled ex-Service man of the rank of private, who married after his discharge and has two children, and who draws unemployability supplement and constant attendance allowance; and what was the annual value of the maximum payments which could have been made in a parallel case in 1919, 1929 and 1939 respectively.

Mr. Simmons: The present annual value, assuming constant attendance allowance at the maximum rate, is £379, 12s. The annual value of the maximum payments

ding dates in 1945, 1946. 1947, and 1948, respectively.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Pensions (Mr. Simmons): As the information required is somewhat detailed, I will, with permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT. Briefly, the total of the three allowances in payment has increased from 8,520 in 1945 to 38,870 today.

Mr. Symonds: Will my hon. Friend do all he can to give publicity to that remarkable increase, so that the country can be fully aware of the way in which, since the war, this Government have looked after the injured and ex-Service men?

Mr. Simmons: The 24th Report of my right hon. Friend was obtainable in the Vote Office yesterday, and I hope that every hon. Member will get a copy and will give publicity to the work that has been done.

Following is the information:

which could have been made in corresponding circumstances in 1919, 1929 and 1939 was £156.

Mr. Symonds: Does that very largely increased figure include the children's allowance as provided by the Ministry of Pensions, and would the children's allowance provided by the Ministry of National Insurance be over and above that figure?

Mr. Simmons: A pensioner with two children would receive, in addition to the figure I have already given, the five shillings given by the Ministry of National Insurance for the second child.

Oral Answers to Questions — BRITISH ARMY

Barrack Accountants

Lieut.-Commander Clark Hutchison: asked the Secretary of State for War whether, in view of the long waiting list of Service pensioners for employment as barrack store accountants and barrack inventory accountants, he will now transfer the established civil servants at present holding posts as barrack fuel and light accountants to other posits and reopen this type of employment to Service pensioners.

The Under-Secretary of State for War (Mr. Michael Stewart): I would refer the hon. and gallant Member to the reply given to his Questions on this subject on 22nd February last. There is no longer a grade of barrack fuel and light accountant, the posts in question having been assimilated to the general clerical class of the Civil Service. To regrade these posts to barrack accountants would be contrary to the general policy that clerical work shall be done by clerical grades.

Lieut-Commander Hutchison: In view of the fact that something like 455 pensioners are on the waiting list for employment as barrack wardens, will not the Under-Secretary reconsider this decision, which has caused great dissatisfaction?

Mr. Stewart: I think we must look at the question as a whole. It should be remembered that, in the general clerical class to which these posts have now been assimilated, there are vacancies reserved for ex-Regular Service men.

Military Mission, Greece (Commander)

Mr. Piratin: asked the Secretary of State for War what are the qualifications of Major-General C. D. Packard, Director of Military Intelligence, for command of the British Military Mission in Greece.

Mr. M. Stewart: Major-General Packard has had a distinguished career both as a commander and as a staff officer. Among his many appointments he has commanded an Infantry Brigade, has been Deputy Chief of Staff in the Mediterranean theatre and Chief of Staff to the Allied Commander in Austria. My right hon. Friend is satisfied that in view of his extensive command and staff ex-

perience, Major-General Packard is particularly suited to be the Commander of the British Military Mission in Greece.

Mr. Piratin: Will the Under-Secretary say what is the purpose of sending an officer who held the post of Director of Military Intelligence in this country to the Military Mission in Greece, whose aim, we are told, is only to advise the Greek Government on military matters?

Mr. Stewart: As I have already pointed out, the particular qualification to which the hon. Member refers is only one of a number of qualifications held by this officer.

National Service Men (Part-time Posting)

Mr. A. R. W. Low: asked the Secretary of State for War how long before the end of their whole-time service will National Service men be told to which Territorial Army unit they will be posted for part-time service.

Mr. M. Stewart: National Service men will normally be told at least six weeks before they complete their whole-time service, to which Territorial Army or Supplementary Reserve unit they will be posted.

Mr. Low: Would it not be a good thing if they were told much earlier than that, and would it not be a good thing if the War Office quickly made up its mind about the Territorial unit to which these men are to be posted, in order that they might tell the Territorial unit itself?

Mr. Stewart: We shall certainly tell the Territorial unit itself within at least six weeks. I am endeavouring to put it at a minimum.

Colonel Dower: Would it not be desirable, if possible, to let them know earlier, so that they can receive training in the technical branch of the Service to which they are to be posted after their National Service training?

Mr. Stewart: Certainly, it is desirable to let them know to which unit they are to be posted.

Brigadier Prior-Palmer: Will the Minister ensure that, as far as possible, these men will be posted to the same arm of the Service as that in which they


served their National Service in the Regular Forces?

Mr. Stewart: Yes, Sir, as far as is possible, but the hon. and gallant Member will realise that a good many other considerations will have to be taken into account in determining in what unit a man will serve in the Territorial Army.

Mr. Low: Once they have been told to which unit they will be posted, are they then allowed to volunteer for another Territorial Army unit, or is that option to volunteer taken away from them?

Mr. Stewart: Perhaps the hon. Member will put that question on the Order Paper.

Mr. Vane: Will the hon. Gentleman say whether the normal National Service man will be allowed to go to the unit of his choice?

Mr. Stewart: That is not always possible.

Mr. Low: asked the Secretary of State for War how many National Service men will be posted at the end of their whole-time service to the Territorial Army; and how many to the Army Reserve.

Mr. M. Stewart: The proportion in which National Service men will, at the end of their whole-time service, be posted to the Territorial Army and to the Army Supplementary Reserve, respectively, will depend, to a considerable extent, upon the response which is made by volunteers for the Territorial Army and for the Supplementary Reserve. Present plans, however, envisage that between 75 and 80 per cent. of National Service men will be posted to the Territorial Army, and the remainder to the Supplementary Reserve.

Mr. Low: In view of the present shortage of volunteers for the Territorial Army—which is likely to continue for at least another year—would it not be wise if a higher proportion than 75 per cent. were posted to the Territorial Army?

Mr. Stewart: It is 75 or 80 per cent., and, as I stated, that figure is subject to modification, in the light of the response to recruiting in both organisations.

Major Legge-Bourke: Would the hon. Gentleman say what proportion of the

20 per cent. which it is proposed to send to the Army Reserve will be men who are known to be going into reserved occupations, and whether those who will be sent to the Army Reserve will normally be men in reserved occupations?

Mr. Stewart: Not necessarily.

Private, Parachute Regiment (Sentence)

Mr. Blackburn: asked the Secretary of State for War whether he will review the sentence of 112 days' detention passed on Private Gilbert Edward Watson, Parachute Regiment, for conduct prejudicial to good order and military discipline in failing to prepare for action in an aircraft when ordered to do so.

Mr. Odey: asked the Secretary of State for War whether consideration can be given to the possibility of transferring to another regiment Private Gilbert Edward Watson, of the Parachute Regiment, who has been sentenced to 112 days' detention for refusing to jump from an aeroplane.

Mr. Michael Stewart: This sentence will be reviewed by the Command concerned under normal arrangements next month. Private Watson will be transferred out of the Parachute Regiment.

Mr. Blackburn: Is my hon. Friend aware that that is a most unsatisfactory answer; that this soldier, according to the Press reports, asked to be transferred from the Parachute Regiment and said that he did not think he could jump, that he was then ordered into an aircraft and was subsequently ordered to jump and failed to do so? Does not my hon. Friend realise that it is a great honour for anybody to belong to the Parachute Regiment and that if he feels that he has to transfer himself he loses the honour, and that it is absolutely disgraceful for the Government to be responsible in any way for a sentence of detention against a man who refuses to jump?

Mr. Stewart: I have some sympathy for the feeling behind what my hon. Friend has said, but I do not think that he has the story correct by any means. The position is that this soldier was sent on a refresher course—he had previously done work of this kind—and it was made clear to him, as to other men on that


course, that he could at any time honourably withdraw from it. But, of course, once he had decided of his own free will to complete the course and was posted to an airborne unit, he was then expected to carry out the ordinary duties of that unit. As I have said, the sentence is subject to review.

Earl Winterton: Is not the procedure which the hon. Gentleman has laid down the normal procedure in these cases? Is it not usual to review a case?

Mr. Stewart: That is so.

Mr. Shurmer: He ought not to have been sentenced.

Mr. Low: Could the hon. Gentleman say whether, in fact, this man asked to be transferred from the Parachute Regiment?

Mr. Stewart: That is not my information.

Air-Commodore Harvey: While the Secretary of State for War is carrying out his tour of the Middle East, will the Minister invite his right hon. Friend to bale out himself and then to review the sentence?

Mr. Shurmer: Is my hon. Friend aware that this is causing great concern and much comment up and down the country, and that the last has not been heard of it? It is most disgraceful that this man should have been sentenced.

Mr. Blackburn: Will my hon. Friend bear in mind that even during the war it was not the practice to court-martial soldiers who refused to jump, and that it really seems absolutely stupid to court-martial them now in peacetime when there is no danger to the country?

Mr. Odey: Does not the Minister realise that it is quite clear that Private Watson is not a suitable member of the Parachute Regiment and that it is quite futile to sentence him to 112 days' detention for not carrying out a task for which he is obviously unsuited?

Mr. Stewart: I fully appreciate the opinions expressed in all parts of the House on this matter, but I do not feel that any injustice has been done so far in carrying through the normal procedure where a soldier, for whatever reason, does

not fulfil the duty required of him. I shall, of course, convey to my right hon. Friend the feelings expressed by hon. Members in many parts of the House, and I am quite sure that my right hon. Friend will be capable of dealing with this matter with justice and humanity without the advice of the hon. Member opposite.

Entrance Examination

Major Tufton Beamish: asked the Secretary of State for War how many candidates sat for the Civil Service Commissioners Army Entrance Examination during the May-October period; how many candidates were successful in the written examination; how many have been accepted for entrance to the Royal Military Academy; how this compares with the eight previous periods; and what action will be taken to encourage sufficient candidates to come forward in future.

Mr. M. Stewart: As the answer involves a number of figures, I will, with permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Major Beamish: Does the Minister recollect that some three weeks ago his right hon. Friend, in reply to an inspired Question, sought to prove how many benefits had been conferred on Army officers? Is not the proof of the pudding in the eating, and does not the Minister agree that the shortage of potential officers is an extremely grave matter?

Mr. Stewart: I think the hon. and gallant Member should first study the answer which will appear in the OFFICIAL REPORT, from which he will see that the number of candidates—when it is fully known for this year, which it is not yet—will compare favourably with that of previous years.

Major Legge-Bourke: Will the hon. Gentleman answer the last part of the original Question and say what steps are being taken to encourage recruitment?

Mr. Stewart: We are arranging talks to individual classes and meetings between headmasters and senior officers at the War Office and the Royal Military Academy. It is mainly by approaches to schools of that kind that we are likely to get useful results.

Following is the answer:

The number of Civil Service Commissioners examinations a year was increased in 1949 from two to three.

Date of Army Entrance Examination
Sat
Qualified at written examination
Accepted for entry to Sandhurst



December, 1946
…
…
…
…
476
275
173
173


June, 1947
…
…
…
…
531
271
164
318


December, 1947
…
…
…
…
371
234
154


June, 1948
…
…
…
…
399
276
148
264


December, 1948
…
…
…
…
241
174
116


February, 1949
…
…
…
…
305
237
136
233


May, 1949
…
…
…
…
243
167
97


October, 1949
…
…
…
…
250
not yet known
not yet known

The figures for accepted candidates, taking account of the number likely to be accepted from the October examination, show that the position arising in regard to the 1949 examinations is no worse than in previous years. Nevertheless, steps are being taken to increase the existing publicity given to the attractions of a Regular officer's career by talks given to individual schools and meetings of headmasters by senior officers of the War Office and the Royal Military Academy.

Oral Answers to Questions — TOWN AND COUNTRY PLANNING

Beaches, Shoreham and Lancing

Brigadier Prior-Palmer: asked the Minister of Town and Country Planning how soon a decision will be arrived at in regard to the development plan for the Shoreham and Lancingbeaches.

The Minister of Town and Country Planning (Mr. Silkin): I hope to give a decision to the local planning authority within the next three weeks.

Brigadier Prior-Palmer: Is the Minister aware that the county council's proposals were drawn up within four months of the scheme being suggested, since when the matter has hung fire for practically a year, and does he not consider that deplorable in view of the state of mind of the residents in this particular area?

Mr. Silkin: This is a very complicated proposal. There were 70 objectors at the public inquiry, including a number of important local authorities. The matter

Statistics in respect of the examinations held since entry to the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst, was opened in December, 1946, are as follow:
is very controversial and a certain amount of time is inevitably taken up in going into the various objections raised.

Brigadier Prior-Palmer: Is there any truth in the suggestion that the file was lost between the right hon. Gentleman's Department and the Ministry of Health for something like seven months?

*See Columns 1329 and 1330.

Earl Winterton: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that my constituents, like those of my hon. and gallant Friend, are disturbed at the delay and that there seems to be some mystery about the matter? Can the right hon. Gentleman tell us what the mystery is, and why he has taken so long to come to a decision?

Mr. Silkin: I have not taken up all the time; the local authority has taken up a good deal of it. The right hon. Gentleman's own constituency is against the proposal; it is one of the objectors. I have now promised to give a decision within three weeks.

Ironstone Workings

13 and 15. Mr. Mitchison: asked the Minister of Town and Country Planning (1) whether he is aware of the need to restore the land devastated by ironstone workings in the Midlands; what progress has been made by the two Standing Conferences appointed to co-ordinate the views of those concerned; and when he expects to receive any report;
(2) whether he can now make a statement on his policy as to the restoration of land worked for ironstone in the Mid-


lands; and what steps are being taken to ensure working in such a way as to admit of full restoration to agricultural use.

Mr. Silkin: I am aware of the need to restore this land, and the Standing Conferences, which have been examining this question, have prepared interim reports, of which I have received advance copies. I will make a statement as soon as possible.

Mr. Mitchison: Is the Minister aware that this matter is really urgent, that there is very considerable and widespread feeling about it throughout Northamptonshire, including feeling among the steel workers themselves, and that a statement of policy was to be made "at the earliest possible moment" over three years ago? In the circumstances, will my right hon. Friend do his very best to produce both a satisfactory and a rapid statement?

Mr. Silkin: In answer to these many questions, I have promised to make a statement as soon as I have had an opportunity of considering the reports which have been submitted to me.

Mr. Mitchison: Will that be before Christmas?

Mr. Mitchison: asked the Minister of. Town and Country Planning how many many public inquiries have been held about iron ore workings in the Kettering Division and for what purpose and with what present result.

Mr. Silkin: Two local inquiries have been held for the purpose of obtaining the views of the parties and other interested persons. I am now considering the Inspector's reports.

Mr. Mitchison: Is the Minister aware that a number of other local inquiries have been held or are being held in the neighbourhood, and when does he expect to reach any decision on any of these local inquiries?

Mr. Silkin: The two local inquiries to which I referred are the only ones which have been held. There are two more which will be held before the end of the year.

Mr. Mitchison: Is it not about time that some decision was come to about these matters? At present the inhabitants of Kettering and the neighbourhood. who

are accustomed to walking in this part of the country, are unable to do so, and nobody knows what is going to happen to the fine woodlands which concern everyone in the countryside.

Mr. Charles Williams: Does the Minister ever make any decision, except hopelessly wrong ones?

Tree Felling, Harting

Mr. Joynson-Hicks: asked the Minister of Town and Country Planning how many trees have been felled at the beauty spot known as the Warren, at Harting, in West Sussex; and whether the action he has taken has resulted in a cessation of the felling.

Mr. Silkin: Ninety-four trees have been felled. Since, as I informed the hon. Member, the trees concerned are dangerous, I do not propose to intervene in the matter.

Mr. Joynson-Hicks: In view of the fact that there were only 88 trees to begin with, is the right hon. Gentleman quite sure that his Departmental mathematics are correct? As the trees have now been felled, will he ensure that the country planning of this area includes the reafforestation to which he previously referred?

Mr. Silkin: The hon. Gentleman must have miscounted, because there were 200. If he cares to pay another visit he will see that there are still 106 trees left. Due regard is being had to the need for re-plan ting, and that will be pressed on.

Earl Winterton: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there is a great deal of cutting of trees and reafforestation going on in Sussex at the present time, and that those who are taking part in it, like myself, believe that it is in the best interests of the country?

Mr. Silkin: I am very much obliged for the assistance of the noble Lord.

Mr. Skeffington-Lodge: Will my right hon. Friend ensure that the local authorities in this area are made aware of the fact that they can, if necessary, issue tree preservation orders in order to keep the 106 trees which he has mentioned?

Mr. Silkin: I must assume that the local authorities in this, as in other areas, know their powers.

Oral Answers to Questions — NATIONAL INSURANCE

Ministry Staff, Edinburgh

Lieut-Commander Clark Hutchison: asked the Minister of National Insurance if he is aware that two ex-Service men employed as temporary clerks in the Central Pensions Branch, Grassmarket, Edinburgh, who have been successful in the written examination for establishment and have been interviewed by the Selection Board, are having their services terminated as from 24th November on grounds of redundancy; and whether he will suspend the discharge of these men until such time as Parliament has had an opportunity of debating the whole question of the discharge of ex-Service temporary clerks under the provisions of Treasury Circular No. 14/45.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of National Insurance (Mr. Steele): The chances of these officers in the competition, the results of which will not be available for some time, are in no way prejudiced. They are being dealt with under special provisions in a national agreement governing the establishment of temporary officers, and their retention out of turn would be a breach of the national agreement on redundancy.

Lieut-Commander Hutchison: Can the Minister say if the head of the Department was consulted before notice of discharge was given to these men, and whether account has been taken of their professional abilities?

Mr. Steele: As I have indicated in answer to previous Questions on this matter, the question of discharge of redundant staff is governed by a national agreement to which both sides are parties.

Lieut-Commander Hutchison: In view of the unsatisfactory nature of the answer, I wish to give notice that I shall endeavour to raise this matter on the Adjournment.

Explanatory Booklet

Mr. Ernest Davies: asked the Minister of National Insurance if he will now issue a comprehensive booklet explaining the provision for entitlements to pensions, benefits, etc., and the procedure for application required by the various National Insurance, National Assistance and National Health Service Acts and by the relevant regulations made thereunder.

The Minister of National Insurance (Mr. James Griffiths): Any publication about the Health Service would be a matter for my right hon. Friends. As regards the Acts administered by my Department, I would like to issue comprehensive booklets in due course, but I do not think that I should be justified in doing so in present circumstances.

Mr. Davies: Can my right hon. Friend give the House any idea of when he is likely to issue this comprehensive booklet which would be so valuable to Members and others who have to refer to a very large number of leaflets of all sorts and sizes at the present moment?

Mr. Griffiths: I appreciate that, but the production of a booklet would require quite a large staff, and I think that I shall have to wait until the organisation and administration are running more smoothly before that is done.

Mr. Symonds: In the meantime, will my right hon. Friend issue leaflets all of the same size so that they can be kept together reasonably well?.

Mr. Griffiths: Yes, that is being done now.

Unemployment Benefit

Mr. Piratin: asked the Minister of National Insurance how much increase in unemployment benefit it is estimated would be necessary to make it equivalent in purchasing power to the pre-war rate of 17s.; and what consideration he has given to increasing the amount accordingly.

Mr. J. Griffiths: I cannot add to the information given on 8th November by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer in his reply to the hon. Member for Louth (Mr. Osborne) on the purchasing power of the £. Any increase in the rates of benefit would involve an increase in contributions which I am not prepared to contemplate in present circumstances.

Mr. Piratin: Is the Minister aware that in order to meet the increased cost of living, according to official figures, the amount required would be about 5s., and that that 5s. would only bring the figure up to the pre-war figure in buying terms? Has not the Minister, therefore, responsibility at least to provide the pre-war unemployment benefit?

Mr. Griffiths: The unemployment benefit was raised with other benefits when the new Insurance Act came into force. I would remind the hon. Member that the benefit not only of unemployed persons, but also of their wives and children was also raised. In addition, those benefits can be supplemented by assistance.

Mr. Piratin: My Question was related particularly to the single man who today receives only 20s. If the Minister examines that category he will see that the single man gets no additional benefit whatsoever.

Mr. Griffiths: A single man is also entitled to national assistance.

Old Age Pensioners

22 and 23. Mr. Tom Brown: asked the Minister of National Insurance (1) if he will give the number of old age pensioners in receipt of supplementary pensions during the quarters ended 31st March, 30th June and 30th September, 1949, respectively; and the amount of money paid in each quarter and the average amount paid during the nine months, excluding rent allowances;
(2) if he will give the number of old age pensioners in receipt of rent allowances in the four regions, stating the number in each region separately; and the average amount paid to each person.

Mr. J. Griffiths: As the answer is somewhat long and contains a number of figures I will, with permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Following is the answer:

The number of old age pensioners, including wives of pensioners, in respect of whom assistance grants in supplementation of pension were being paid was about 710,000 at the end of March, 1949, 730,000 at the end of June and 745,000 at the end of September. The September figures are distributed as follow:

London
152,000


Rest of England
483,000


Wales
56,000


Scotland
54,000

In practically every case the assessment included a sum for rent, except in a few cases where the pensioner was living rent free and where he was paying an inclusive charge for board and lodgings; but as the amount actually paid is a net amount arrived at after deducting the pension and

other resources (if any) it is not possible to allocate part of it specifically to rent. I would, however, refer my hon. Friend to page 44 of the Annual Report of the National Assistance Board for 1948 which gives, in considerable detail, information about rents paid by applicants for assistance on the basis of a special inquiry made in November, 1948. It is regretted that the detailed amounts of money paid in each quarter are not available.

National Assistance Board (Regulations)

Mr. T. Brown: asked the Minister of National Insurance what steps he has taken since 3rd November last to consult with the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the National Assistance Board for a general review of the regulations of the Board.

Mr. J. Griffiths: I have taken note of the views and suggestions put forward by my hon. Friend in the Debate on 3rd November. I am regularly in touch with the Board on the working of their regulations, but I cannot add to what I said on this subject in reply to questions by my hon. Friends the Members for Taunton (Mr. Collins) and Ilkestone (Mr. Oliver) on 15th November.

Mr. Brown: Is the Minister aware that there is grave disquiet in the country about the treatment given to old age pensioners when they have to receive assistance from the National Assistance Board area offices? Will the Minister get some determination and some kick into this matter, and get the thing settled?

Mr. Griffiths: I think that, on the whole, the Board are doing their work very well indeed. In fact, they are very generous in regard to the discretionary allowances, as I indicated in my reply last week.

Mr. Mikardo: While joining in the tribute to the work of the National Assistance Board, may I ask my right hon. Friend to bear in mind that the Board's general scales were fixed as being just sufficient to maintain health and to avoid malnutrition, and that since then there has been a rise of a number of points in the cost of living index and a further rise is projected? Therefore, by definition the scales are insufficient to maintain health and avoid malnutrition.

Mr. Griffiths: My hon. Friend is assuming what is not correct, and that is that all the pensioners are existing on these scales. There is provision for discretionary allowances. I would also remind my hon. Friend that the disregards which we permit are very much more generous than they have ever been before.

Mr. Carmichael: Will the Minister realise that the regulations are so rigid that an extra allowance can only be made in exceptional cases, and that consequently because of the scaling there is need to review the regulations again?

Mr. Griffiths: I do not think the regulations are being applied rigidly. One-third of all the pensioners receiving supplements are also receiving a discretionary allowance. That does not indicate much rigidity.

Mr. Gallacher: In view of the demands that are being made for an increase for lower-paid workers, will the Minister not realise that old age pensioners get less than half of what is paid to the lower-paid workers, and that they cannot possibly live on the amount that they get. even with assistance from the Assistance Board?

Mr. Griffiths: I think the Ministry, the Board and this Government have every right to be proud of what they have done for the old people.

Mr. Brown: Arising from the replies given to the Question and from the apparent complacency of the three Departments referred to on 3rd November, I beg to give notice that I shall raise this matter on the Adjournment.

Hon. Members: Hear, hear.

Mr. Gallacher: Why are hon. Members opposite cheering? They starved them.

Oral Answers to Questions — SCOTLAND

Building Labour

Mr. Emrys Hughes: asked the Minister of Labour if he is satisfied that the building labour force in Scotland is sufficient for the building of the married quarters programme without interfering with the housing programme of the local authorities.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour (Mr. Ness Edwards): Yes, Sir.

Mr. Hughes: Is the Minister aware that there is considerable disquiet among local authorities in Scotland about the slow progress on married quarters for miners? What steps have been taken to see that there will be an increase of building labour to meet this demand and other demands?

Mr. Ness Edwards: I thought the Question on the Order Paper was directed to married quarters for persons in the Forces and, as far as that programme is concerned, no delay has occurred in the local authorities' housing schemes because of the building of married quarters.

Advisory Council on Education (Report)

Lieut-Commander Clark Hutchison: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he has yet received the report on public libraries and other cultural services in Scotland from the Advisory Council on Education; and whether it is his intention to publish this report in due course.

The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Woodburn): The Advisory Council have informed me that they are now engaged on drafting the Report but that they will be unable to complete it until next year. The Report will, in due course, be published as a Command Paper.

Hospital Staffs

Mr. Carmichael: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland when he intends to exercise more supervision over the regional hospital boards in their increasing appointments of administrative and medical chiefs and if he will take steps to halt the advancing of salaries of administrative and medical chiefs particularly at a time when the Trade Union Congress is constantly exercising restraint on the wages increase appeals of the workers.

Mr. Woodburn: Regional hospital boards cannot increase the number of their senior administrative appointments, medical or lay, without my approval and in recent months there has been no substantial increase either in this category or in the number of their senior medical appointments in hospitals. As regards the


second part of the Question, I can assure the hon. Member that the Government's policy as regards salaries and wages applies in the Health Service as in other fields.

Mr. Carmichael: Would my right hon. Friend give us some figures to show that there has been no substantial increase? On the second point, is he aware that very large increases have already been made in the salaries of people under the hospital boards? Surely, if we call a halt to the old-age pensioners and to the assistance boards, we should call a halt to this.

Mr. Woodburn: I think the hon. Member is mistaken. He is probably mistaking the fact that a great many scales have been settled by the Whitley Council—the Council for settling what these scales should be under the National Health Service. These may only now be becoming applicable in his district, but no increases have been granted.

Mr. Carmichael: If the Chancellor of the Exchequer calls a halt to the proposals for increases for higher civil servants, then if these increases have not yet been made operative, surely it is the time to call a halt here, too. These increases are very high indeed.

Mr. Woodburn: I want to make it clear to the hon. Member that these are not increases. These are the rates for the job, which have now been established and which are being paid for the first time.

Mr. Carmichael: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland what Were the respective numbers of specialists attached to the Royal, Victoria and Western infirmaries in Glasgow on 1st July, 1948; what are the corresponding numbers today; and what changes in management and administration have made necessary the engagement of additional specialists.

Mr. Woodburn: The Royal, Victoria and Western Infirmaries in Glasgow are now managed as key hospitals of three separate groups of hospitals. The numbers of specialists on the staffs of the hospitals in these groups in July, 1948, were 109, 55 and 141, respectively. The corresponding numbers today are 103, 58 and 142, showing an over-all net decrease of two. The second part of the Question does not, therefore, arise.

Mr. Carmichael: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland what was the total number of staff engaged on health administrative work in the area now designated the Scottish Western Regional Hospital area on 1st July, 1948; what is the total number of staff employed today under the supervision of the Western Regional Hospital Board; and why there has been an increase in personnel.

Mr. Woodburn: The number of administrative and clerical staff employed on the administration of the hospital and specialist services in the Western Region on 1st July, 1948, could not be obtained without undue labour. Many of the technical and financial staff, for example, in the employment of local authorities were partly engaged on this work and partly on other work altogether. The number employed at 31st August, 1949, in the offices of the Regional Board and the 37 boards of management is 475.

Mr. Rankin: Is my right hon. Friend aware that in Glasgow we now have 14 hospital management committees, each with its full-time administrative secretary and deputy, and that this body is performing the work which was formerly largely done by one health committee, with three sub-committees, one chief officer and a deputy?

Mr. Woodburn: I think my hon. Friend had better put down that question. Glasgow is a big and important city and I would not accept that picture of the change without verification.

Mr. Carmichael: The Secretary of State indicated in his answer that the administrative staffs numbered just over 400, but the Question I asked said, "under the supervision of the Western Regional Hospital Board." I therefore think I am entitled to include in that all the hospitals in the Western Regional area. Have I to take it that we have only a little over 400 engaged on the administrative work over that entire area?

Mr. Woodburn: Might I repeat the last sentence of the reply. It was:
The number employed at 31st August, 1949, in the offices of the Regional Board and the 37 boards of management is 475.

Doctors' Lists

Mr. Rankin: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland what steps he proposes


to take to reduce the maximum number of patients on a doctor's list from 4,000 to 3,800, or some agreed smaller number.

Mr. Woodburn: I am arranging to explore this possibility with the profession in Scotland.

Mr. Rankin: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he is prepared to publish lists of areas in Scotland which are over-doctored, under-doctored and adequately doctored; and to revise the lists annually.

Mr. Woodburn: I have asked the Scottish Medical Practices Committee to let me have, for early publication, lists of the areas which they consider most in need of additional doctors. Published information will be kept up to date as necessary.

Agricultural Land

Sir David Robertson: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland the number of schemes he has embarked upon since 30th June for the recovery of lost agricultural land.

Mr. Woodburn: Twenty-five arterial drainage schemes initiated since 30th June will result in the improvement of some 1,900 acres of agricultural land at present in a low state of productivity. In addition, I have since that date approved 1,597 applications from proprietors and tenants for 50 per cent. grants to help them with land drainage works estimated to cost £240,000. Agricultural executive committees have been asked to examine whether there are acreages in their areas which might be considered for reclamation in terms of Section 57 of the Agriculture (Scotland) Act, 1948.

Sir D. Robertson: Is it not obvious from that reply that the Minister is not replying to the Question I put on the Order Paper? May I ask him whether he recalls the words he used in the important Scottish Economic Debate on 30th June, when he said that at that moment he was considering land reclamation free of cost to the land owner or to the tenant? It is those schemes about which I am inquiring.

Mr. Woodburn: If the hon. Member will put down a specific Question on that point I will endeavour to answer it.

Statistics (Publication)

Mr. Emrys Hugbes: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will publish an illustrated booklet dealing with recent Scottish statistics in the same way as the facts about our finances were portrayed in the booklet "The Budget and Your Pocket."

Mr. Woodburn: Statistics relating to employment in the principal Scottish industries, to the output of raw materials and manufactured products, to the progress of factory building and to shipping movements are published each year, together with a wide range of information about economic developments in Scotland, in the White Paper on Industry and Employment. I am afraid that this information would not readily lend itself to pictorial treatment.

Mr. Hughes: Is the Minister aware that the Lord Provost of Edinburgh has recently been in Canada talking about the "grim facts" of Scotland? Is my right hon. Friend aware that the grim facts are that the death rate has gone down, that infantile mortality has gone down and that the tuberculosis rate has gone down? Cannot he publish that in picture form so that the Lord Provost can understand it?

Mr. Woodburn: I think that is a possibility. I will look into the question of whether such a document could be prepared.

Sir William Darling: In answer to the supplementary question the right hon. Gentleman said "that is a possibility." To which possibility does he refer—the intelligence of the Lord Provost or his own ability to produce this booklet?

Mr. Woodburn: For the moment I was referring to the publication.

Harbours, Keiss and Brora

Sir D. Robertson: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he is aware that the harbour at Keiss is silted up and that the sea channel and bar is in a similar state, and that craft returning to harbour can only enter at high tide, thus involving danger to fishermen who may be compelled to seek refuge from storms; and if he will have this situation remedied.

Mr. Woodburn: My information is that the silting up at this harbour is not such as to interfere seriously with fishing. The harbour is privately owned, and it is for the proprietor to undertake any necessary works.

Sir D. Robertson: Will the Secretary of State accept my assurance that the information on which this Question was based was given to me by a deputation of fishermen? Surely, the men who use the harbour are the best judges as to the facts? Can the right hon. Gentleman bring any pressure upon the proprietor who is responsible?

Hon. Members: Oh.

Mr. Woodburn: As the hon. Gentleman knows, we have a lot of pressure not to interfere with private enterprise in these matters.

Lord John Hope: That is about the silliest remark possible.

Sir D. Robertson: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he is aware that the harbour at Brora has become silted-up with sand; that fishing craft can only enter and leave at high tide, and that small coastal vessels which formerly used the port are no longer able to do so; and if he will take steps to have the sand removed and protective groynes erected to prevent a recurrence of silting.

Mr. Woodburn: I am aware of the silting up at this harbour, but I understand that the few fishing boats based on it are still able to work regularly. The harbour is privately owned, and while this continues it does not qualify for assistance from public funds.

Legal Aid Act (Operation)

Mr. Willis: asked the Lord Advocate the effects of the decision to postpone the coming into operation of the Legal Aid and Solicitors (Scotland) Act.

The Lord Advocate (Mr. John Wheatley): Discussions are proceeding with the interests concerned as to which parts of the Act can be brought into operation, but I am not yet in a position to make a statement.

Mr. Willis: In view of the very full information given to the House last week concerning England, can my right hon.

and learned Friend say why it takes so long, in the case of Scotland, to make a statement?

The Lord Advocate: Because we have a different procedure and a different jurisdiction in our courts in Scotland, and we are anxious to get the best possible results having regard to those differences.

Oral Answers to Questions — ADVISORY COMMITTEES

Mr. Osborne: asked the Prime Minister if in view of the need to free more people for the task of production, he will extend to all Ministries the policy under which the Minister of Fuel and Power has disbanded 700 local fuel economy committees.

The Prime Minister (Mr. Attlee): No, Sir. The Government are much indebted to the public-spirited persons who give their services part-time on advisory committees of this kind; and I am not prepared to disband them before their work is done.

Mr. Osborne: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there is a great deal of time wasted in committees—although the National Health Service has been vindicated today—in the nationalised industries, until it is becoming almost a racket? Will he take a look into this matter so that people can be released for productive work?

The Prime Minister: My experience is that whether there is waste of time on committees or not depends very largely on the committee men or women, as the case may be; but I am quite sure that in a democracy useful public service of this kind is invaluable.

Sir W. Darling: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the Minister of Fuel and Power has disbanded local fuel committees?

The Prime Minister: I am aware of that, and the reason is that they were put into operation for a particular purpose in 1947, and that since then, under the Electricity Act. other committees have been set up to perform those functions.

Mr. Osborne: That is just my point. Will the Prime Minister look at other committees whose functions have ceased


to exist and disband them, so that the people on them can get on with a real job of production?

The Prime Minister: If the hon. Gentleman can give me some instances of committees that have ceased to function I should be pleased to deal with them.

Mr. Osborne: I will do that with pleasure.

Oral Answers to Questions — NATIONAL FINANCE

Industrial Costs (Taxation)

Mr. Enroll: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if, with a view to helping to give effect to the Government's policy of preventing taxation entering into industrial costs, he will refund Purchase Tax paid by firms for equipment, stores and other items required in connection with their business activities.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Sir Stafford Cripps): No, Sir. This is not practicable; nor do I think it would make any material difference to industrial costs.

Mr. Erroll: In view of that answer will the right hon. and learned Gentleman desist from making statements to the effect that taxation does not enter into industrial costs?

Sir S. Cripps: If it is relevant to the matter being discussed at the time.

Government Securities

Mr. Osborne: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is the approximate total foreign holdings of Government stocks and, in view of the large sales from these accounts since the pound was devalued, if he will take steps to restore public confidence.

Sir S. Cripps: I regret that this information is not available. In reply to the second part of the Question I would refer the hon. Member to the reply of my right hon. Friend the Financial Secretary on 17th November last to Questions asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Luton (Mr. Warbey) and my hon. Friend the Member for Ashton (Mr. Wyatt).

Mr. Osborne: Is the right hon. and learned Gentleman satisfied that this sale

of gilt-edged securities by foreigners has been stopped now? Or can he take any steps to stop it?

Sir S. Cripps: No. I have no evidence that any took place at all.

Mr. Osborne: Then will the Chancellor read the editorial columns of "The Times," which paper is regarded as responsible?

Sir S. Cripps: That is not evidence.

Mr. Drayson: Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman make it clear to holders of British Government securities overseas that they are quite free to do what they like with them?

Sir S. Cripps: They are free, subject, of course, to control restrictions. They are not wholly free.

Mr. Osborne: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer upon which public funds has fallen the cost of raising the level of gilt-edged stocks under his predecessor to permit the issue of 2½ per cent. Treasury Stock at par in 1946; and how much public money was used to achieve this object.

Sir S. Cripps: Purchases and sales of Government securities in the market by official funds have taken place from day to day under this Government as under previous Governments but in accordance with long-established practice I am not prepared to disclose details of these transactions, or add to the information given to Parliament in the statutory accounts of official funds.

Mr. Osborne: Could the Chancellor say whether it is true that it cost about £800 million to put the gilt-edged market right in order that his predecessor's vanity could be satisfied?

Sir S. Cripps: That is not true, but I cannot say whether anything else is true or not.

Sir W. Smithers: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer the purchase price of the £28.2 million 2½ per cent. Treasury stock held in the account of the Fund for the Banks for Savings, and of the £21.7 million, £201 million, £1.6 million, £1.1 million, and £1.2 million, of the same stock held in the accounts of the Post Office Savings Bank Fund, the


National Insurance (Reserve) Fund, the County Court, the Crown Lands and the Supreme Court, respectively.

Sir S. Cripps: I would refer the hon. Member to the statutory accounts of these Funds, which are laid before Parliament. I am not prepared to add to the information contained in the accounts.

Sir W. Smithers: Is it not a fact that the Chancellor will not publish these figures because they show the enormous loss to the taxpayer; is the Chancellor not aware that this is due to the cheap money policy followed by himself and his predecessor; and will he Set up a committee, under the chairmanship of his predecessor, to inquire into these losses?

Government Information Services

Sir John Mellor: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer why in view of the erroneous figures contained in Command Paper 7697 concerning Government Information Services, that document had not been withdrawn by 15th November although the errors were known to his Department in June; and when a corrected Command Paper will be presented to Parliament.

Sir S. Cripps: For reasons of economy, and because the error was small in relation to the total figures, it was thought sufficient to report the facts to the Public Accounts Committee, at whose recommendation the White Paper had originally been presented. I do not now propose to present a corrected Command Paper, which would, in view of the Government's economy proposals, be quite out of date, but the corrected totals for Departmental expenditure will be shown in next year's White Paper.

Sir J. Mellor: Will the Chancellor agree that there were six mistakes in this document, and that the salaries and expenses of the Air Ministry's information staff were shown at a third of the correct figure, a total error of £30,000? Does the right hon. and learned Gentleman regard this as a small drop in the ocean of inaccuracy of Government statements?

Sir S. Cripps: There was an obvious misprint in which certain figures in one line were repeated in the next, instead of a new lot of figures.

Sir J. Mellor: Is it not a fact that members of the Public Accounts Committee, as appears in the published minutes, express the view that this document should be withdrawn and a correct version issued? Was it not a fact? May I have an answer?

Hon. Members: Answer.

Sir S. Cripps: I am not aware, without having the document before me, whether that was so or not.

Exchange Control Offences (Informers)

Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer on what Vote are included rewards paid to persons giving information with reference to alleged offences under the Exchange Control Act.

Sir S. Cripps: Any such rewards which are paid in future will be charged against the Treasury Vote, Subhead H, Exchange Control.

Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: Is the right hon. and learned Gentleman aware that this practice of paying people money to give information about alleged offences is on the whole repugnant to ordinary people? Will he ensure that in no case is money ever paid to informers who have incited to the commission of an offence?

Sir S. Cripps: I am not aware, especially in view of the fact that every Government for many years past have had such a system in operation in regard to Customs, the Inland Revenue, the Post Office, the Metropolitan Police, the Board of Trade, and the Ministry of Food.

Mr. Frank Byers: Would not the Chancellor look at this question again and see that it is the extension of this system which is repugnant to many people at the present time? Would he not look at it again?

Sir S. Cripps: I am not inclined to look at it again. I see no reason why offenders against the Exchange Control Act should be particularly lightly dealt with.

Mr. Chetwynd: Is my right hon. and learned Friend aware that the offences themselves are repugnant to the people of England?

Mr. Keeling: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer to what extent his regulations make informers about breach of the exchange regulations liable for Income Tax on the rewards they receive from the Treasury, and what expenses may be deducted.

Sir S. Cripps: These rewards will not be liable to Income Tax; but this is a matter of Income Tax law and not of regulations.

Mr. Keeling: But what about the second part of the Question? May I give a concrete example? Supposing a person crosses the Channel or the Atlantic for no other purpose than to spy on his fellow-passengers, would his fare be considered a deductible expense?

Sir S. Cripps: Not unless he was travelling on business in the normal way.

Mr. Blackburn: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what new decision he has reached as a result of his reconsideration of She subject of payments to informers for giving information which leads to convictions under Exchange Control Regulations.

Sir S. Cripps: None, Sir.

Mr. Blackburn: Is not the Chancellor aware that this practice of making payments to informers conflicts with the good sense and the moral sense of the British people; and is it not illogical for him, as the main Socialist to advocate co-operation with the Communists before the war, to raise this matter again, because of the fact that the Tories have done it before? The fact that the Tories have done it before, is no reason for us to do it now.

Sir S. Cripps: In every democracy that I know of this is common practice, and if properly administered does no harm.

Viscount Hinchingbrooke: Is the Chancellor aware that, in the view of a very large number of persons, some of the provisions of the Exchange Control Aot are not consonant with the free society in which we believe; arid that, however much we may deplore it and enjoin observance of the law, payments to informers will inevitably result in an extension of tax evasion?

Mr. Speaker: The Question asked what new decision had been reached, and the

answer was "None." Surely that completely answered the Question.

Mr. Blackburn: In view of the very grave issues which are involved, I shall raise this matter on the Adjournment at the earliest opportunity.

Dollar Payments (Germany)

Colonel Crosthwaite-Eyre: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what action is being taken to reduce the dollar drain incurred by this country resulting from agreements in force governing the Bi-zone of Germany.

Sir S. Cripps: Contrary to expectation the sterling area was so far in deficit with the Trizone during the third quarter of this year that we had to make a settlement of 7 million dollars in October. We have since, in conjunction with the German authorities, been looking into the causes of this deficit. Should trade, following this review, take the course which we both expected earlier on, we shall not have to make any further dollar settlements.
There is a further liability on His Majesty's Government, under the Revised Fusion Agreement of December, 1947, to convert into dollars, in certain circumstances, sterling held by the Trizone in a separate account. This matter, with others, is now being discussed with the U.S. Government.

Colonel Crosthwaite-Eyre: Could the Chancellor say whether in fact he anticipates that any further drain will occur?

Sir S. Cripps: I cannot say with any definiteness, obviously, in view of what has happened in Europe lately, but I hope that no further drain will occur.

Raw Materials (Dollars)

Colonel Crosthwaite-Eyre: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer how far it has been possible to maintain the dollar price for raw materials to the United States of America subsequent to devaluation.

Sir S. Cripps: Following on devaluation there has been a general reduction in dollar prices for exports of raw materials from the sterling area. The amount of the reduction varies from case to case, but on average appears to be less than 10 per cent.

Colonel Crosthwaite-Eyre: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what members of the sterling area are allowed to retain for their own use dollars and hard currency arising out of sales by them of raw materials outside the sterling area; and in particular, if any such arrangement has been made in the case of Indian manganese.

Sir S. Cripps: It is the established practice of the sterling area that members retain such dollar earnings as they need to meet current working requirements and sell any surpluses to the Bank of England. No special arrangements apply to sales of Indian manganese.

Colonel Crosthwaite-Eyre: Do the sales of manganese now bring any dollars into the sterling area pool, or are all the dollars so obtained held by India and used by India?

Sir S. Cripps: I cannot allocate dollars received for any particular purpose. Under the arrangement with India, they have a certain number of dollars available; the rest come into the pool.

Colonel Crosthwaite-Eyre: Then will the Chancellor give the figures of the amounts received from India in the last three years?

Sir S. Cripps: No, Sir. We are not prepared to disclose the accounts of other countries with the Bank of England.

Austrian Loan

Mr. Keeling: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer when first the Italian Government refused to acknowledge their liability to honour their guarantee to repay 20½ per cent. of the drawn bonds of the Austrian conversion loan, 1934–59; what reason they gave; and what further representations are being made by His Majesty's Government.

Sir S. Cripps: The Italian Government's attitude on their default, which dates back to 1939, is given in the Press announcement of 13th July, 1948, to which I referred the hon. Member on 5th April, 1949. We shall continue to press the Italian Government to meet their obligations.

Mr. Keeling: Yes, but would the right hon. and learned Gentleman state when they first disputed their liability—a fact

which was first revealed by the Economic Secretary only two or three weeks ago?

Sir S. Cripps: I stated, in 1939.

Lieut-Commander Gurney Braithwaite: Is it not the case that the Italian Government are at present in possession of a sterling credit of some £40 million? Would it not be reasonable for those arrears of withdrawings, which amount to no more than £750,000, to be met?

Sir S. Cripps: That is a question of who is giving the decision as to what is reasonable.

Lieut-Colonel Sir Cuthbert Head-lam: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what steps he has taken since 1st July, 1949, to induce the Czechoslovak Government to terminate its default in respect of the Austrian Government Guaranteed Loan, 1934–59; and whether His Majesty's Government have accepted the interpretation of Article 8 of the Trade and Financial Agreement of the 28th September, 1949, which holds the Czechoslovak Government liable to fulfil its guarantee, but not necessarily until the last day of the duration of the agreement, namely, 30th June, 1954.

Sir S. Cripps: After protesting against this default, His Majesty's Government made every effort during the recent financial and trade negotiations to ascertain the standpoint of the Czechoslovak Government and to induce them to pay. It appears that the Czechoslovak Government contend that their guarantee was. conditional on the continued operation of certain measures of international control over the Austrian Government's finances, which have lapsed. His Majesty's Government have supported the Trustees in rejecting this contention entirely. Several other Governments are involved, and discussions are proceeding through the diplomatic channel. The answer to the second part of the Question is in the negative.

Chief Planning Officer (Duties)

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer the duties now performed by Sir Edwin Plowden: and whether it is intended to continue his appointment.

Sir S. Cripps: In reply to the first part of the Question, I would refer the hon. Member to the statements made to this House by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister on 27th March, 1947, and 2nd February, 1948, about the duties of the Chief Planning Officer. As regards the second part, the answer is in the affirmative.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: Would not some economy be achieved by putting this appointment on a basis of payment by results?

Sir S. Cripps: No, Sir.

Vaciric Company Limited

Mr. Erroll: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer the present total of advances by the Government to the Vactric Company Limited.

Sir S. Cripps: Three hundred and forty thousand pounds.

Mr. Erroll: In view of this very large sum, can the Chancellor say whether he is satisfied with the workings of this company?

Sir S. Cripps: As far as I am aware, the company is now operating successfully.

Sir W. Darling: Is the sum the Chancellor has just mentioned in addition to the sum supplied to this company by the I.C.F.C.?

Sir S. Cripps: The hon. Gentleman will have to put that question down.

National Debt (Interest Payments)

Sir Waldron Smithers: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer how much of the interest on the National Debt for 1948, amounting to £495,398,374, is paid on that part of the debt which was at the time of payment owned respectively by the Bank of England and by the "Big Five" banks.

Sir S. Cripps: These figures could only be obtained with a wholly disproportionate expenditure of time and labour, which I am not prepared to contemplate.

Sir W. Smithers: Is it not a fact that the Chancellor will not produce these figures because they show him up so badly?

Sir S. Cripps: No, Sir.

Sir W. Smithers: Of course they do.

Agricultural Loans (Interest)

Mr. Hurd: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he gave his approval to the higher rate of interest now fixed by the Agricultural Mortgage Corporation for new loans to landowners who are undertaking the improvement of cow-houses and other farm buildings; and if he will give an assurance that restrictions will not be placed on capital expenditure needed to ensure full and economical food production.

Sir S. Cripps: The Agricultural Mortgage Corporation informed me of the proposal to raise the rate of interest for new loans from 3½ per cent. to 4 per cent., and the Minister of Agriculture and I are satisfied that this was advisable. This increase—which applies to all new loans made by the Corporation—will enable it to meet the demands made on it for long-term credit.

Mr. Hurd: On what grounds did the Chancellor consider it appropriate to raise this rate of interest to 4 per cent. when landowners are expected to find £25 million for necessary improvements?

Sir S. Cripps: On the ground that we were not prepared to subsidise landowners through the Corporation more than to the extent of £150,000 a year.

Nationalised Industries (Compensation)

Mr. Emrys Hughes: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if, in view of the danger of inflation, and the considerable expenditure to be incurred in paying large annual sums in compensation to shareholders of industries that have been nationalised, he will introduce legislation providing for part payment of such compensation to wealthier shareholders in a manner akin to the post-war credit scheme.

Sir S. Cripps: No, Sir. This proposal would be inconsistent with the Government's compensation policy, to which effect has been given in several Acts of Parliament.

Mr. Hughes: Is the Chancellor aware that we are anxious to help him in his financial difficulties; and. as I have


drawn up a memorandum outlining a scheme for post-crisis credits for shareholders payable in 1972, will he look at it seriously?

Sir S. Cripps: I will look at any scheme the hon. Gentleman draws up.

Government Departments (Staff Cuts)

Colonel J. R. H. Hutchison: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether, in view of the fact that in the making of staff cuts in Government Departments the principle of last in first out does not make for efficiency, he will reconsider the use of this method.

Sir S. Cripps: The order of discharge on redundancy is governed by National Whitley Council Agreements, which make special provision for the discharge out of turn of those found unable to carry out the duties of their grade with due efficiency. I do not consider that these agreements require revision.

Colonel Hutchison: Would not the Chancellor agree, and if so draw it to the attention of those in charge of nationalised industries, that the position of a newcomer under the "last in first out" system becomes intolerable, because he is always last in and consequently always first out?

Sir S. Cripps: This arrangement, which was made as regards Government Departments with the Whitley Council, is, I think, a fair one and is operating well.

American Play (Tax Exemption)

Mr. Geoffrey Cooper: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer on what grounds he absolved from the payment of Entertainments Duty an American play entitled "A Streetcar Named Desire," now playing at the Aldwych Theatre.

Mr. Marlowe: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer upon what grounds a play called "A Streetcar Named Desire," now being performed in London, was exempted from Entertainments Duty; and what persons or bodies were consulted before the exemption was granted.

Sir S. Cripps: This production is exempt from Entertainments Duty under the provisions of Section 8 of the

Finance Act, 1946, because the Commissioners of Customs and Excise are satisfied that it is provided by a body which is not conducted or established for profit and whose aims, objects and activities are partly educational There was no occasion for consulting any other person or body.

Mr. Marlowe: Is the Chancellor aware that a vast body of opinion does not share his view that this play is in any way educational; and will he review the test by which exemption is granted, in view of the fact that, as a large number of people who perform in and produce this play are drawing hundreds of pounds a week out of it it is ridiculous to call it non-profit making?

Sir S. Cripps: No, Sir. I have never suggested that in my view, or the view of anyone else, this play is educational. That is not the issue which Parliament arranged should be applied to such cases in the Finance Bill, 1946.

Mr. Cooper: Can the Chancellor say what is the procedure by which judgment is passed on the suitability, artistic merits, and so forth, of a play of this sort; do H. M. Tennents have any say whatever in this matter; and can he explain why a non-profit making amateur dramatic society in Middlesbrough is being threatened by his officials with Entertainment Duty on its performances which would not otherwise be presented, while a commercial play of a rather unsavoury nature like this is exempt?

Sir S. Cripps: If the hon. Gentleman will put that question on the Order Paper I will answer it.

Mr. Peter Thorneycroft: Would the Chancellor at least give an undertaking to look into the situation which is created to see whether he can possibly justify a case where we are paying dollars for this play and exempting it from tax, when other much worthier plays are mulcted in heavy sums?

Sir S. Cripps: No, Sir. I am satisfied that the test which Parliament laid down is a proper one. That is, not that the Treasury should be made a censor of plays, but that it should examine the qualities of the company which produces the plays, and, if it falls within the definition Parliament has made, whatever play it may produce is exempted from tax.

Mrs. Leah Manning: Does that answer mean that because the company is educational, and is supposed to have high standards of taste, it can put on any kind of play it likes, however low and however repugnant to the general taste in this country?

Sir S. Cripps: That is certainly not a matter which, in my view, should be dealt with by taxation.

Mr. Wilson Harris: Can the Chancellor say what happens to the profits which have obviously been made by this particular play, which I believe is booked up till next February?

Sir S. Cripps: If the hon. Gentleman will put that question on the Order Paper I will answer it.

Mr. Marlowe: Does not the Chancellor realise that what in effect happens is that vast profits are taken and merely put away and not distributed, but used later on; that, merely because the producing company does not make a profit, it does not prevent a vast number of other people making a very considerable profit; and will he review the matter in the light of that?

Sir S. Cripps: If by "profit" the hon. and learned Gentleman means receiving a salary, that is not the point. The company which produces this cannot be a profit-making company. If it should become such a thing it would cease to qualify for exemption.

Mr. Wyatt: Even though there may be some abuse of this system, is it not the case that, on balance, it produces a good result in enabling the production of plays of a worth-while character, which would otherwise not be produced; and will my right hon. and learned Friend resist any attempt of censorship of plays by Treasury officials?

Sir S. Cripps: Certainly.

Mr. Cooper: May I gather from the answers which my right hon. and learned Friend has given, that this non-profit making society in Middlesbrough would be exempted from Entertainments Duty?

Sir S. Cripps: I suggested that my hon. Friend should put down a question on the Order Paper.

Oral Answers to Questions — QUESTIONS TO MINISTERS

Earl Winterton: May I ask you, Mr. Speaker, on a matter of which I have previously given notice, for a Ruling on the admissibility of Questions relating to the Press? It is based upon a Question asked by the hon. Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Beswick) last week, the gist of which was to ask whether a committee would be set up to investigate charges made by the "Sunday Express" newspaper, that officials of nationalised industries are using their position to buy motor cars through official channels. I am not challenging the action of the Clerks at the Table responsible for passing the Question. If I were to do that, it would be obligatory on me to put down a Motion. I am only asking for information. I think that it will be agreed that it is an established Ruling of successive occupants of the Chair that a question challenging the accuracy of a newspaper report cannot appear on the Order Paper, since no Minister is officially responsible for the newspapers, using that phrase in its widest sense. My respectful request is for a Ruling whether in future it will be possible to put in the guise of a Question a similar demand to that put by the hon. Member for Uxbridge for a committee of inquiry, whenever an hon. Member considers that a particular newspaper has published false information regarding the speech or activities of a Minister responsible for a Government Department or a nationalised industry.

Mr. Speaker: I am much obliged to the noble Lord for putting his question. I think that his question is quite accurate, and that the answer I must give will be exactly what he wants.
The Question to which the noble Lord refers was first handed in by the hon. Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Beswick) and carefully considered from the point of view of Ministerial responsibility. It was slightly amended, in agreement with the hon. Member, to its final form and then passed, bearing in mind that the House had recently discussed the Report of the Royal Commission on the Press and had also heard Questions answered on the subject raised in the hon. Member's Question. Perhaps I might add that so far as my recollection goes, in view of what happened then, and the previous Questions asked on this matter, it was


referred to me, and I gave my answer, giving him the benefit of the doubt. Looking back on the matter now in the light of the noble Lord's argument, I have come to the conclusion that the Question should not have been allowed, and it cannot be in order to ask for a committee of inquiry into charges made by a newspaper or, indeed, on any other newspaper statement. To allow such a Question would tend to infringe Rule 15 on page 337 of Erskine May. If there is any blame attached, I take the blame myself because I passed the Question.

Mr. Beswick: I have listened to your Ruling, Mr. Speaker, with some interest, and, for my part, I accept, as I must do, what you have said. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Horsham (Earl Winterton) said that the reason for my Question was that I wished to attack a newspaper—[Interruption.]—Oh, yes, that I wished to attack a newspaper, and he imputed a motive of my own in putting down that Question. May I say that in fact I did not come to this House in order to attack a newspaper. I first of all wrote to the editor of the "Sunday Express' asking if he would be good enough to give me the details on which he based certain charges, and the editor of the newspaper concerned wrote to me a short note—

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member may later on, if he chooses, make a personal statement, but this is not the moment to debate my Ruling.

Mr. Nally: This is an important matter, and may I ask you, Mr. Speaker, if you will define it a little more extensively. Let us suppose, as a hypothetical case, that a Question is put on the Order Paper based upon a newspaper account of something alleged to be done in a Government Department as a consequence of which the hon. Member has put down a Question. There then follows a supplementary question in which the hon. Member asking the supplementary question of the right hon. Gentleman mentions that the basis of the question is a specific newspaper. Are we to assume from your Ruling that it will in point of fact be out of Order, either directly or indirectly, to suggest in this House that the editorial methods of a particular newspaper in relation to a particular story stand in need of some attention?

Mr. Speaker: If I was quick enough I should rule the supplementary out of Order. The basis of a Question is that the hon. Member takes responsibility for it himself. I think that we had a case in point two or three days ago when there was an alleged strike in Walsall and the hon. Member for King's Norton (Mr. Blackburn) complained that because he refused to make a statement in a Question that there was such a strike going on the Question was not accepted but that the hon. Member for Walsall (Mr. W. Wells) and another hon. Member—I forget who it was—took the responsibility and therefore their Question went on the Order Paper. Hon. Members cannot quote what a newspaper says. They must take the responsibility themselves.

Mr. Beswick: Would I be in Order to ask what progress has been made towards setting up a Press Council?

Mr. Speaker: I think that my Ruling covers that. I really do not know where Ministerial responsibility lies in that case. What I would suggest is that the hon. Member tries it—that he puts a Question down, and sees what happens..

Mr. Mikardo: Would your Ruling, Mr. Speaker, that it is inadmissible to ask a Minister whether he will set up a Commission and investigate a statement made in a newspaper, also apply to a Question asking the Minister to set up a committee to investigate a statement made publicly in some other form, for example, in a broadcast or in a public speech by an individual?

Mr. Speaker: In vain is the net spread in the sight of the bird. I am not going to answer a hypothetical question. I would like to see it in writing first, and then I will answer it.

Mr. H. D. Hughes: Following your reference to the Walsall question, may the House take it, Mr. Speaker, that there is nothing in your Ruling which would prevent Press stories being exposed in this House by hon. Members taking the responsibility for the facts and asking supplementary questions based on them, as was the case in that particular instance?

Mr. Speaker: I think that was covered by my Ruling the other day.

POLICE CONDUCT (PRESS LETTER)

The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Ede): With your permission, Mr. Speaker, I wish to make a statement to the House.
On 24th September last, the "New Statesman and Nation" published a letter, signed "John Hadlow," describing an incident alleged to have taken place in Dalston Lane, Hackney, "one recent Sunday," in which very specific charges were made against the conduct of the Metropolitan Police.
On that same day, in the belief that "John Hadlow" was the real name of the writer and that he could be easily traced and would be willing to substantiate his allegations, I gave instructions that he should be interviewed and his statements examined. It was with surprise that I later discovered that the signature was a nom de plume, although no indication of this fact, known to the editor of the "New Statesman," as he admits, was given on the date of publication
In pursuance of my instructions, the Commissioner of Police wrote to the editor of the "New Statesman" asking him to invite "John Hadlow" to give details of the incidents, in order that the allegations might be properly investigated. As the Commissioner's approach failed to produce the requisite information, notwithstanding the editor's willingness to co-operate, I myself wrote to the editor of the "New Statesman," stating that if Mr. "Hadlow" was willing to come forward and give evidence I would be prepared to set up an independent judicial inquiry.
I also gave an assurance, on behalf both of the Commissioner of Police and of myself, that Mr. "Hadlow's" position as a reporter vis-à-vis New Scotland Yard would not in any way be prejudiced, although I made it clear that I could not guarantee immunity from legal process taken by any individual police officer who believed that his official character had been traduced. At the same time I took preliminary steps, in consultation with the Lord Chancellor, for a high judicial officer to be available to hold an inquiry into the complaints.
I informed the House on 27th October of the steps which had been taken. On 3rd November, in a supplementary question, the hon. Member for Finsbury (Mr. Platts-Mills) alleged that the police knew the identity of the writer of the letter, that they had at once visited his employers and that he had "got the sack." The hon. Member suggested that the act of victimisation which Mr. "Hadlow" had feared, and which I had said would not take place, had been brought about by the police themselves.
I at once investigated this allegation, and received a written categorical assurance from the Commissioner of Police that no Metropolitan Police officer had approached the employer of any journalist thought to be "John Hadlow." The editor of the "New Statesman" had previously informed me that Mr. "Hadlow" had told him that "Hadlow" had informed someone senior to him on his paper that he was the author of the letter published in the "New Statesman."
After the statement made by the hon. Member for Finsbury, I made further inquiries of the editor of the "New Statesman," who informed me that Mr. "Hadlow" had, in fact, been asked to resign from the paper, but that on no occasion had Mr. "Hadlow" made allegations to the editor of police intervention against him. The hon. Member for Finsbury tells me that he has no positive evidence of police intervention, but that his statement was based on information supplied to him. As a result of my inquiries, I can only assume that the hon. Member has been misinformed. In view of the statement made by Mr. "Hadlow" to the editor of the "New Statesman," no intervention on the part of the police is required to explain the call for Mr. "Hadlow's" resignation.
More than a month has now elapsed since I wrote to the editor of the "New Statesman." The editor of the "New Statesman" and the hon. Member for Finsbury inform me that they have seen Mr. "Hadlow" separately on several occasions, and I have been in frequent communication both with the editor and with the hon. Member. They inform me that Mr. "Hadlow" declines to come forward on the ground that the disclosure of his identity would make it difficult, if not impossible, for him to earn his livelihood in his profession.
The hon. Member for Finsbury suggested that I should see Mr. "Hadlow" under seal of confidence, but I have not felt able to accept this suggestion. As the House will appreciate, if Mr. "Hadlow's" identity were disclosed to me under a seal of confidence and I interviewed him under that seal, I should be in an impossible position, since I would be able neither to communicate my information to this House, nor to take any action on it to have his allegations publicly and judicially tested.
There has been a further development. On 8th November, the editor of the "New Statesman" informed me that a member of the public, other than Mr. "Hadlow," had witnessed an incident, which he assumed was the incident referred to by Mr. "Hadlow," but he did not give as full details as those contained in Mr. "Hadlow's "letter. At my request, the editor asked his informant whether he would be willing to make to a representative of the Treasury Solicitor a statement which, in default of further particulars from Mr. "Hadlow," might afford a basis for an inquiry. The editor informs me that the informant feels that it would be useless to give evidence alone, but that he would be willing to do so if, and only if, other journalists who were present on the occasion in question would do the same.
The position, therefore, is that allegations have been made in the public Press reflecting most gravely on the fitness of a section of the Metropolitan Police to be members of that or of any police force. I am most anxious that those allegations should be fully and properly investigated, but an inquiry cannot be held merely on the basis of a letter in the Press.
If there is to be an inquiry, Mr. "Hadlow," or somebody who believes he saw the same incident, must be prepared to give evidence before an independent tribunal to enable the truth to be ascertained by the usual methods of examination and cross-examination of witnesses. Since no one is willing to come forward to support the allegations, it is not possible for me to set up a tribunal of inquiry.
I have, however, caused to be made, without the assistance of Mr. "Hadlow," such inquiries as are open to me. and have obtained reports from the police

about all recent incidents that have occurred in the Dalston Lane area. These reports do not in any respect support the grave allegations made by Mr. "Hadlow." I have also made inquiries about court proceedings arising out of any recent incidents in that area, and I am informed that in no case has it been alleged in court that the police behaved in the manner complained of by Mr. "Hadlow."
It may also be not without significance that the person, alleged by Mr. "Hadlow" to have been assaulted in the presence of the police, has not come forward in support of Mr. "Hadlow's" allegations, and has not seen fit to make any representations in the matter, either to the Commissioner of Police or to the Home Office.
I apologise to the House for the length of this statement, but the history of our own times records in all too ghastly a fashion the danger to human liberty of a police force which adopts a partisan attitude towards the citizens it should impartially protect. The situation in East London is a particularly delicate one. As I have repeatedly assured the House, it has had my constant personal attention.
Conferences with the principal police officers concerned have left them in no doubt as to the insistence of the Government on the maintenance of law and order without consideration for the political, religious or racial affiliations of any individual citizen who may be the subject of their attention, either as in need of protection or for a breach of the law.
I can only say, in conclusion, that I think it is most unfair to the police that grave allegations should be written against their conduct by persons who are unwilling to afford the necessary facilities to enable their charges to be investigated. If any police officer were guilty of the serious misconduct alleged on this occasion, the most severe disciplinary action would be taken against him.
The Commissioner of Police—no less than I—would be most anxious to weed out from the force any person who was shown to be so unfit to discharge the high responsibilities of a police officer and to maintain the high tradition of the British police service. I am sure the House will agree with me that these unsubstantiated allegations should not be allowed in any way to shake the con-


fidence of Parliament, or the public, in the impartiality of the Metropolitan Police.

Mr. Eden: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that we on this side certainly share his sense of resentment at the fact that these anonymous charges should be made in respect of the Police Force? Is there any power in the Police Force whereby they can take action themselves in their own defence against anonymous charges? Further, is it not an extremely undesirable practice that any newspaper should publish an anonymous letter under a genuine name without giving any indication at all, by inverted commas or any other means, that a nom de plume has been used?

Mr. Ede: With regard to the second part of the right hon. Gentleman's supplementary, I am not sure how I can answer that, Mr. Speaker, in view of your recent Ruling. I have no responsibility for the correspondence columns of the Press, but I hope I shall not be out of Order in saying that I think, especially where charges against public servants are made, that if the signature is one that cannot be identified there should be some indication of that fact to readers. With regard to the first part of the right hon. Gentleman's supplementary, I would remind the House that a police officer is an ordinary citizen. If an individual police officer can be identified in these very vague and general charges, undoubtedly he has the same remedies in the courts as any other citizen. I hope it will be recognised by the House that a police officer is a civilian, and no more. That is the great glory of the British police forces. If any individual officer thinks that he can be identified, I hope he will take action.

Mr. Churchill: Should it not be a little more than that? If an individual officer can be identified, and is slurred upon and assailed in this manner, surely it is a case which might well be considered by the Law Officers of the Crown to be worthy of the attention of the Public Prosecutor as a matter of criminal libel.

Mr. Ede: Hon. Members who recollect this particular letter will remember that no one's name is mentioned. There is an allegation that not far short of 40 officers were involved, but no date, time

or place was given. So far as I am concerned, I would do all I could to assist an officer who wanted to vindicate the honour of the Force in this matter.

Mr. Eden: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there may be cases—this is one—where a particular officer is not named? In those circumstances is the Commissioner of Police empowered to do anything, or must anything be accepted in the way of charges so long as an individual policeman is not mentioned?

Mr. Ede: The whole question of group libel—and that is what this really is—is a matter which has been engaging the attention of distinguished lawyers recently. I do not think they have found any satisfactory solution to it, and I am sure the House would not expect me, as a layman, to pronounce upon so intricate and legalistic a point.

Mr. Thurtle: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the editor of the "New Statesman and Nation" himself, in the week following the publication of this letter, made some very severe strictures on the police which were based on the allegations made in this anonymous letter?

Mr. Ede: Yes, Sir. If they could be construed as a libel, they were merely a group libel; they did not single out, so far as I could follow, a particular officer who could be identified.

Mr. Platts-Mills: As I was brought into this matter, may I make one or two observations to the Home Secretary? The right hon. Gentleman clearly admits that there was a journalist who wrote under an assumed name, but I think there is something more. First, this man is an established and reliable journalist of whom his editor said, in his letter of dismissal:
I would, of course, gladly at all times be ready to give you"—

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member must ask questions. He cannot challenge or debate the Home Secretary's statement.

Mr. Clement Davies: On a point of Order. The hon. Member for Finsbury (Mr. Platts-Mills) was reading from a document. Is there not a Rule of this House that if an hon. Member does read from a document it must be laid on the Table?

Mr. Platts-Mills: I was not reading from a document. It was a personal memorandum, copied from the original letter of dismissal which I hold in my hand, among other documents. Lest the House should have had any doubt about the terms the editor used, I was reading this copy, showing that he had a high opinion of this man's capacity. The Home Secretary still challenges, apparently, the fact that this man was dismissed. May I remind the House of the terms of the Home Secretary's statement?

Mr. Speaker: The Home Secretary's statement cannot be debated. There is no Motion before the House. There is merely a statement on which questions can be asked. It cannot be debated.

Mr. Platts-Mills: Is the Home Secretary aware that he said on 17th November:
that what Mr. John Hadiow said to the editor of the 'New Statesman' does not bear out the allegation that he was dismissed."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 17th November, 1949; Vol 469, c. 2172.]
Is he further aware that that was before the date of his dismissal? Whatever the right hon. Gentleman said, it had the effect of spreading the idea that the man had not been dismissed or perhaps even the idea that I had misled the House, when two weeks' before I asserted positively that he had been dismissed. Has anyone any doubt that for a young professional man with responsibilities to be sacked out of hand is a very serious issue? Is there anyone who thinks that the victimisation of a professional man is less harmful than the victimisation of an ordinary working person? While we understand the Home Secretary being chiefly concerned about the reputation of the police, does he not agree that the Special Branch of Scotland Yard is a secret and political branch that works hand in glove with M.I.5, and is not answerable to this House, let alone to the Minister?
Does the Home Secretary expect me to tell him what I know about their activities when we know that they would never tell him what they are up to? [An HON. MEMBER: "Do they know what you are up to? "] If the hon. Gentleman thinks that this particular branch of the police knows what I am up to that is certainly true: I am not ashamed of that at all. With the ordinary branch of the

police I have most active and cordial relations. Does not the Home Secretary realise that young Fascist blackguards are spreading violence and fear throughout Shoreditch and the neighbouring boroughs? Does he not appreciate—

Mr. Churchill: On a point of Order. May I ask you, Mr. Speaker, what Motion is before the House?

Mr. Speaker: I have interrupted the hon. Member already. There is no Motion before the House. We cannot debate this statement; we can ask questions of the Home Secretary, and that is all. The hon. Member for Finsbury (Mr. Platts-Mills) was putting his questions almost in the form of a Debate, and I shall not allow him to stand up much longer.

Mr. Platts-Mills: You will observe, Sir, that I was brought into this as though I have some responsibility for it. When the right hon. Gentleman suggests that I sought to put some condition on his seeing this young man, does he not remember that he wrote to me in terms which indicated that he was prepared to see him subject to conditions as to disclosure? I have the letter here, and I will read it if the House desires. Does he not agree that in view of the spreading of this campaign of violence against our peaceful citizens—

Mr. Speaker: I have allowed the hon. Member a lot of rope. He is making all kinds of wild allegations, and I cannot allow him to go on any further. The Home Secretary can now answer the questions.

Mr. Platts-Mills: rose —

Mr. Speaker: I have said that I cannot allow the hon. Member to go on any further. He must now resume his seat.

Mr. Gallacher: On a point of Order. I should like most respectfully to draw your attention, Sir, to the fact that in a very considerable part of the Home Secretary's statement mention was made, time and again, of the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Finsbury (Mr. Platts-Mills) as though, somehow or another, he had been responsible for some of the happenings in connection with the publication of this letter or the events subsequent to its publication.

Mr. Speaker: I read a copy of the Home Secretary's statement as he was reading it. Mention was made of the hon. Member's name, but only occasionally.

Mr. Ede: With regard to the questions put by the hon. Member for Finsbury, I have detailed in the statement the information that was conveyed to me by the editor of the "New Statesman" that this man was asked to resign by the paper which employed him. As far as the Special Branch are concerned, they are responsible through me to Parliament for any action that they take.

Mr. Gallacher: Why was he asked to resign?

Mr. Ede: How do I know why the employer of a journalist asks him to resign? That is not my responsibility.

Mr. Gallacher: Why, if his employer had such a good opinion of him, was he dismissed?

Mr. Ede: That is the responsibility of the editor. With regard to the letter that I wrote to the hon. Member for Finsbury, we were corresponding about this matter, and if there is one thing that happens in correspondence it is that one keeps at arm's length from the other party. I was anxious to know the name of this man. Therefore, I wrote the letter to the hon. Member suggesting that we should meet. At that time he had said that the man was willing to come forward under the seal of confidence. When I met the hon. Member for Finsbury in my room in this House, the first thing I did was to explain to him how impossible it was to meet a man under seal of confidence for the reasons I detailed to the House, which I gather the House this afternoon accepted.
Might I say that if this man or any other man will come forward to substantiate the statement so that the police officers and he can be confronted with one another, a judge will hold an inquiry into the allegations. With regard to this man's professional future, he placed in jeopardy the professional future of a very large number of police officers. Let me add this—I hope there will be no doubt about it that if they or any single officer had been guilty of such dereliction of duty as they were accused of,

there would have been nothing short of summary dismissal for any such officer, and I should have had the support of the whole of the police officers of the country in imposing such a penalty. This is a most serious charge to have been made and a most cowardly effort to get out of substantiating it.

Mr. Marlowe: The Home Secretary is quite right that no civil libel proceedings can be taken unless some particular police officer is identified, but it is possible to take criminal libel for a scurrilous attack made on a public body in this way. Will the right hon. Gentleman consider submitting this question to the Law Officers of the Crown for them to determine whether or not it is possible to take criminal libel proceedings against the newspaper, the editor of which no doubt acted innocently, which undoubtedly would have the result of compelling the disclosure of the name of the person?

Mr. Ede: I will consult the Law Officers of the Crown on that point.

Mr. Crossman: While agreeing that my right hon. Friend has been scrupulously fair in his investigations, may I ask whether he does not agree that the pressure put by their employers on Mr. "Hadlow" and on other journalists who were present, to prevent their coming forward, is highly undesirable, and is as much resented by the editor of the "New Statesman" as by himself?

Mr. Ede: I have no evidence that any such pressure is being exerted.

Mr. Lipson: Is it really beyond the Home Secretary's powers to find out who "John Hadlow" really is, and is it not fair to the police, against whom these serious unsubstantiated charges have been made, and in the public interest that he should continue his efforts to find out and should see that the matter is properly investigated.

Mr. Ede: If I could find out who this man was I should publish his name. If he would not come forward, that at least would give the police officers concerned an opportunity of compelling him to face up to the result of the accusations he has made.

Mr. Michael Foot: In view of what has been said in one or two questions, will


the Home Secretary confirm the fact that the editor of the "New Statesman" has done everything in his power to assist the Home Secretary in trying to secure an inquiry and in trying to persuade Mr. "Hadlow" to come forward? The second question I want to put is—has it not long been the custom in practically all newspaper offices in certain circumstances to print anonymous letters when, in fact, inquiries have been made as to whether there is really such a person existing, and if that right were to be taken from newspapers it might involve a very serious interference with free speech in this country?

Mr. Ede: Once again I cannot be made responsible for answering for the conduct of editorial offices. The editor of the "New Statesman" has certainly been helpful and has endeavoured to get this man to disclose his identity—

Mr. Jennings: Why did he not tell the right hon. Gentleman who he was?

Mr. Ede: How do I know why? I have trouble enough in explaining why I do things, without being answerable for editors. I do not think—I am speaking only personally now—that charges of this kind should have been ' made in the columns of any responsible newspaper without the editor being assured that the writer would come forward and substantiate them.

Mr. Wilson Harris: Further to the question by my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Mr. Lipson), it is obviously in the interests of the Metropolitan Police that the identity of this man should be discovered. The Metropolitan Police are in the habit of conducting difficult and searching investigations into all sorts of questions. Does the Home Secretary say they are incapable of investigating this case and establishing the identity of Mr. "Hadlow"?

Mr. Ede: I did not say that, but the hon. Gentleman will recollect that one of the charges made against the police is that they went to the present employer of the person concerned and secured his dismissal. I do not want to lay them open to similar charges of persecution. No one knows who was the author of the "Letters of Junius" and he raised issues

of public policy as great as Mr. "John Hadlow" did.

Mr. Beswick: On a point of Order. Would the original Question which gave rise to this statement—which called attention to the allegations in the public Press against officers in the public service—have been in Order under your Ruling, Mr. Speaker, given earlier about questions relating to the public Press?

Mr. Speaker: I am sorry, I was not listening to the hon. Member.

Mr. Beswick: Might I put this question to you again Sir, in the hope that I might get a reply. I wish to ask whether the original Question, which gave rise to this statement by the Home Secretary and which called attention to the allegations made in the public Press against officers in the public service, would have been in Order under the terms of your Ruling which you gave earlier this afternoon?

Mr. Ede: Further to that point of Order. Might I remind you, Mr. Speaker, exactly how this question came up. A Question was on the Order Paper dealing with allegations of violence in the East End of London, and my hon. Friend the Member for Reading (Mr. Mikardo) asked as a supplementary if my attention had been called to the failure of the police to intervene in a certain case as indicated by this letter. My responsibility clearly is seeing that the police do intervene in such matters, and this was not a question that was based merely on a newspaper statement.

Mr. Churchill: Before we leave this topic, could the Home Secretary say whether he has got a supply of questions like this to keep Parliament going until the Dissolution?

Mr. Speaker: The question asked by the hon. Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Beswick) was purely hypothetical and I should like to see it upon the Order Paper. I should like to see it in writing, and then I will consider it. I cannot answer this type of question: "Supposing so and so, would it be in Order?" No, I want to see this question first.

Several Hon. Members: rose —

Mr. Speaker: I think that we had better get on with the next business.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Motion made, and Question put,

"That the Proceedings on Government Business be exempted, at this day's Sitting, from

the provisions of Standing Order No. 1 (Sittings of the House)."—[Mr. Whiteley.]

The House divided: Ayes. 225; Noes, 102.

Division No. 290.]
AYES
 [4. 10 p.m.


Acland, Sir Richard
Griffiths, D. (Rother Valley)
Piratin, P.


Adams, Richard (Balham)
Griffiths, W. D. (Moss Side)
Poole, Cecil (Lichfield)


Allen, A. C. (Bosworth)
Guest, Dr. L. Haden
Popplewell, E.


Allen, Scholefteld (Crewe)
Gunter, R. J.
Porter, E. (Warrington)


Alpass, J. H.
Hall, Rt. Hon. Glenvil
Price, M. Philips


Anderson, A. (Motherwell)
Harrison, J.
Proctor, W. T.


Attewell, H. C.
Henderson, Rt. Hon. A. (Kingswinford)
Randall, H. E.


Austin, H. Lewis
Henderson, Joseph (Ardwick)
Ranger, J.


Awbery, S. $.
Herbison, Miss M.
Rankin, J.


Ayles, W. H. '
Hewitson, Capt. M.
Reeves, J


Ayrton Gould, Mrs, B.
Holman, P.
Rhodes, H.


Balfour, A.
Holmes, H. E. (Hemsworth)
Richards, R.


Barton, C.
Horabin, T. L.
Roberts, Goronwy (Caernarvenshire)


Battley, J. R
Houghton, Douglas
Robertson, J. J (Berwick)


Beswick, F.
Hoy, J.
Rogers, G. H. R.


Bing, G. H C.
Hubbard, T.
Ross, William (Kilmarnock)


Binns, J.
Hudson, J H. (Ealing, W.)
Royle, C.


Blackburn, A. R.
Hughes, Emrys (S. Ayr)
Scott-Elliot, W.


Blyton, W. R.
Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.)
Segal, Dr. S.


Boardman, H.
Hughes, H. D. (W'lverh'pton, W.)
Shackleton, E. A. A.


Bottomley, A. G.
Hutchinson, H. L. (Rusholme)
Sharp, Granville


Bramall, E. A.
Hynd, H. (Hackney, C.)
Shurmer, P


Brook, D. (Halifax)
Irvine, A. J. (Liverpool)
Silverman, J. (Erdington)


Broughton, Or. A. D. D.
Irving, W. J. (Tottenham, N.)
Silverman, S. S. (Nelson)


Brown, George (Belper)
Janner, B.
Simmons, C. J.


Brown, T. J. (Ince)
Jay, D. P. T.
Skeffington-Lodge, T. C


Bruce, Maj. D. W. T.
Jeger, Dr. S. W. (St. Pancras, S.E.)
Skinnard, F. W.


Burden, T. W.
Jenkins, R. H.
Smith, C. (Colchester)


Burke, W. A.
Jones, D. T. (Hartlepool)
Smith, Ellis (Stoke)


Chater, D.
Jones, Elwyn (Plaistow)
Smith, H. N. (Nottingham, S.)


Chetwynd, G R.
Keenan, W.
Smith, S. H. (Hull, S.W.)


Cluse, W. S.
Kenyon, C.
Snow, J. W


Cocks, F S.
Kinghorn, Sqn.-Ldr E
Solley, L. J.


Coldrick, W.
Kinley, J.
Sorensen, R. W.


Collindridge, F.
Kirkwood, Rt. Hon. D.
Soskice, Rt. Hon. Sir Frank


Collins, V. J.
Lawson, Rt. Hon. J. J.
Sparks, J. A.


Colman, Miss G. M.
Lee, F. (Hulme)
Stubbs, A. E.


Cooper, G.
Lee, Miss J. (Cannock)
Swingler, S.


Corlett, Dr. J.
Leonard, W.
Sylvester, G. O


Cove, W. G.
Lipson, D. L.
Symonds, A. L.


Cripps, Rt. Hon. Sir S.
Lipton, Lt.-Col. M
Taylor, Dr. S. (Barnet)


Crossman, R. H. S.
Logan, D. G.
Thomas, D. E. (Aberdare)


Cullen, Mrs.
Longden, F.
Thomas, I. O. (Wrekin)


Daines, P.
Lyne, A. W.
Thorneycroft, Harry (Clayton)


Davies, Edward (Burslem)
McAdam, W.
Thurtle, Ernest


Davies, Ernest (Enfield)
McEntee, V La T
Tiffany, S.


Davies, Harold (Leek)
McGhee, H. G.
Tolley, L.


Davies, Haydn (St. Panoras, S.W.)
Mack, J. D.
Viant, S. P.


Davies, R. J. (Westhoughton)
McKay, J. (Wallsend)
Walker, G. H.


Davies, S. O. (Merthyr)
McKinlay, A. S
Wallace, G. D. (Chislehurst)


Deer, G.
McLeavy, F.
Wallace, H. W. (Walthamstow, E.)


de Freitas, Geoffrey
MacPherson, Malcolm (Stirling)
Warbey, W. N.


Delargy, H. J.
Macpherson, T. (Romford)
Watson, W. M.


Diamond, J.
Mainwaring, W H.
Webb, M. (Bradford, C.)


Dodds, N. N.
Mann, Mrs. J.
Weitzman, D.


Dumpleton, C. W.
Manning, Mrs. L. (Epping)
Wells, P. L. (Faversham)


Ede, Rt. Hon. J. C
Mathers, Rt Hon. George
Wells, W. T. (Walsall)


Edwards, Rt. Hon. N. (Caerphilly)
Mikardo, Ian
Wheatley, Rt. Hon. John (Edinb'gh, E.)


Edwards, W. J. (Whitechapel)
Millington, Wing-Comdr, E. R
White, H. (Derbyshire, N.E.)


Evans, Albert (Islington, W.)
Mitchison, G. R.
Whiteley, Rt. Hon. W.


Evans, John (Ogntore)
Monslow, W.
Wilkes, L.


Farthing, W. J.
Moody, A. S
Willey, F. T. (Sunderland)


Fernyhough, E.
Morley, R.
Willey, O. G. (Cleveland)


Fletcher, E. G. M. (Islington, E.)
Morris, P. (Swansea, W.)
Williams, D. J. (Neath)


Foot, M. M.
Mort, D. L.
Williams, Ronald (Wigan)


Forman, J. C.
Murray, J. D
Williams, W. T (Hammersmith, S.)


Fraser, T. (Hamilton)
Nally, W.
Williams, W. R. (Heston)


Freeman, Peter (Newport)
Nichol, Mrs M. E. (Bradford, N.)
Willis, E.


Ganley, Mrs C. S.
Noel-Buxton, Lady
Woodburn, Rt. Hon A


Gilzean, A.
Oldfield, W. H.
Woods, G. S.


Glanville, J. E. (Consett)
Oliver, G. H.
Wyatt, W.


Gooch, E. G.
Paling, Will T. (Dewsbury)
Yates, V. F.


Grenfell, D. R
Panned, T. C.
Young, Sir R. (Newton)


Grey, C. F.
Parkin, B. T.
Younger, Hon. Kenneth


Grierson, E
Paton, Mrs. F. (Rushcliffe)




Pearson, A
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:




Mr. Hannan and Mr. Wilkins.




NOES


Agnew, Cmdr. P. G.
Grimston. R. V.
Odey, G. W


Amory, D. Heathcoat
Hannon, Sir P. (Moseley)
Osborne, C


Barlow, Sir J
Harden, J. R. E.
Peake, Rt. Hon. O.


Bowen, R.
Harvey, Air-Comdre. A. V.
Poole, O. B. S. (Oswestry)


Bower, N.
Headlam, Lieut.-Col. Rt. Hon. Sir C.
Price-White, D.


Bromley-Davenport, Lt.-Col, W.
Hinchingbrooke, Viscount
Prior-Palmer, Brig. O.


Buchan Hepburn, P. G. T.
Hollis, M. C.
Raikes, H. V.


Bullock, Capt. M.
Hope, Lord J
Reed, Sir S. (Aylesbury)


Butcher, H. W.
Hurd, A.
Roberts, Emrys (Merioneth)


Byers, Frank
Hutchison, Lt.-Cm. Clark (E'b'rgh W.)
Robertson, Sir D. (Streatham)


Carson, E.
Hutchison, Col. J. R. (Glasgow, C.)
Robinson, Roland (Blackpool, S.)


Channon, H.
Jeffreys, General Sir G.
Ropner, Col. L.


Churchill, Rt. Hon. W. S.
Jennings, R.
Sanderson, Sir, F.


Clarke, Col. R. S.
Joynson-Hicks, Hon. L. W.
Scott, Lord W.


Conant, Maj. R. J. E.
Keeling, E. H.
Shepherd, W. S. (Bucklow)


Corbett, Lieut.-Col. U. (Ludlow)
Lancaster, Col. C. G.
Smith, E. P. (Ashford)


Crosthwaite-Eyre, Col. O. E.
Langford-Holt, J.
Smithers, Sir W.


Crowder, Capt. John E
Legge-Bourke, Maj. E. A. H.
Strauss, Henry (English Universities)


Darling, Sir W. Y.
Lennox-Boyd, A. T.
Stuart, Rt. Hon. J. (Moray)


Davidson, Viscountess
Lloyd, Selwyn (Wirral)
Studholme, H. G.


Davies, Rt. Hn. Clement (Montgomery)
Lucas-Tooth, Sir H.
Thorneycroft, G. E. P. (Monmouth)


Digby, S. Wingfield
MacAndrew, Col. Sir C.
Thornton-Kemsley, C. N.


Dower, Col. A. V. G. (Penrith)
Macdonald, Sir P. (I. of Wight)
Touche, G. C.


Dower, E. L. G. (Caithness)
MoKie, J. H. (Galloway)
Turton, R. H.


Drayson, G. B.
MacLeod, J.
Tweedsmuir, Lady.


Drewe, C.
Macpherson, N. (Dumfries)
Vane, W. M. F.


Dugdale, Maj. Sir T. (Richmond)
Manningham-Buller, R. E.
Wakefield, Sir W. W.


Eden, Rt. Hon. A.
Marlowe, A. A. H.
Webbe, Sir H. (Abbey)


Elliot, Lieut.-Col. Rt. Hon. Walter
Marples, A. E.
Williams, C. (Torquay)


Erroll, F. J.
Marshall, D. (Bodmin)
Willoughby de Eresby, Lord


Fletcher, W. (Bury)
Mellor, Sir J.
Winterton, Rt. Hon Earl


Galbraith, Cmdr. T. D. (Pollok)
Moore, Lt.-Col. Sir T.
Young, Sir A. S. L. (Partick)


Gammans, L. D.
Morrison, Maj. J. G. (Salisbury)



George, Maj. Rt. Hon. G. Lloyd (P'ke)
Morrison, Rt. Hon. W. S. (Cirencester)
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


Gridley, Sir A.
Noble, Comdr. A. H. P.
Brigadier Mackeson and




Colonel Wheatley.


Question put, and agreed to.

Orders of the Day — ELECTORAL REGISTERS BILL

Order for Second Reading read.

4.20 p.m.

The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Ede): I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."
Its purpose is to give effect to the Government's decision to abolish the autumn register of electors as one of the measures of economy. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister announced this in the statement which he made to the House on 24th October. It is expected to result in an annual saving estimated at approximately £800,000.
This is not the first occasion on which the number of registers has been reduced from two to one a year in the interests of economy. The Representation of the People Act, 1918, provided for the publication of a spring register and an autumn register in every, year, but the spring register was abolished in 1926 by the Economy (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act of that year. From then until 1939 there was one register every year. During the war years there was none, and although in the exceptional circumstances of 1945 there were two, the May register which was used for the General Election, and the October register—

Mr. McKie: It was a very imperfect one.

Mr. Ede: Like myself, the hon. Member was a supporter of the Government which passed it and so we must share the responsibility for its imperfections. The October register of 1945 was prepared for the municipal elections which were held in November of that year for the first time since 1939. Since then there has been only one register a year up to last year.
In 1946 a Committee presided over by my hon. Friend the Member for Ilkeston (Mr. Oliver), on which the three principal parties were represented, considered and reported upon future arrangements for electoral registration. Among other things they recommended that there should be two registers a year. They said:

We take the view that the importance of having a fresh register for Parliamentary elections fully justifies the preparation of a canvass register every six months.
The Government sympathised with that view and decided to give effect to this recommendation, although not without some hesitation on the score of expense. Parliament endorsed their decision and accordingly the Representation of the People Act, 1948, again provided for the publication of a spring register and an autumn register in every year.
Since that was decided the need for economy has become increasingly pressing, with the result that in the course of their recent review of national expenditure the Government came reluctantly to the conclusion that the expense of preparing two registers a year could no longer be justified. They were influenced, however, not only by financial considerations but by the continuous burden placed upon the staff of registration officers and upon the printing trade by the necessity to prepare and publish two registers every year. The Government also took into account the fact that the register will still be more up-to-date than those between 1926 and 1939 because a three months' qualifying period of residence was then required before a person could be registered, whereas there is no such requirement now. The requirement now is normal residence in a particular place on a certain day.
In deciding to abolish the autumn rather than the spring register, apart from the possibility that the spring register now in course of preparation may well be needed for the General Election, the Government had regard to the fact that whereas before the war the autumn register was needed for the municipal elections in November as well as for the county and district council elections in the spring, the spring register under the 1918 Act was not published until 15th April, which was after the holding of the district and parish council elections in those days. AH local government elections are now held in April or May in accordance with the new provisions of the 1948 Act, and consequently every spring register will in future be used when it is fresh for the local government elections.
On the other hand, if we were confined only to the autumn register, it would be rather stale by the time the local government election came round in April and


May, and it would otherwise be required only in the comparatively infrequent event of a Parliamentary election being held between October and March. For these reasons it seemed clear that in the circumstances of today March rather than October is the appropriate time to publish an annual register.
In addition to dealing with the problem of the single register, the Bill makes certain consequential amendments to the Juries Act, 1922. These apply only to England and Wales. Briefly, the effect is that whereas hitherto the register published in the autumn has served as the basis for the jurors book in the year beginning 1st January after its publication, it is now proposed that in future the annual register to be published in the spring shall serve as the basis for the jurors book for the year beginning 15th August.
I ought to say a few words on the reasons for selecting that date. I considered at one time selecting 1st June or 1st July as the date for the new jurors lists coming into operation, but that might result in a trial being started at the end of the previous month and a juror being summoned whose name did not appear on the list which came into effect on the 1st of the month.. I am told that it is rather doubtful what effect that might have on any decision reached by the jury if it remained empanelled, whether it would be legal to get a verdict from a jury which contained a person or persons who had not retained their qualification on the new jurors lists. By fixing 15th August as the date we choose a date which is in the Long Vacation when it is unlikely that there will be any jury actions which will be affected by the coming into force of the new register.
This is a short and quite simple Bill. It carries out quite clearly the purpose which the Government have in mind, and it is, in fact, a re-enactment of the existing law, except for the abolition of one register and for altering the date on which the jury lists come into effect. It does not alter anyone's qualification. It ensures a substantial economy not merely in money but in the strain which is put on the officers of the registration officer's department twice in the year.
One of the difficulties confronting us in connection with the compilation of the

existing register is that in these days of full employment it is not so easy to get canvassers who are willing to give up a few days to carry out the canvass required by the registration procedure. It frequently means that persons in the local government offices have to do this work in their evening time, and it is not easy to ask them to do this twice in the year.
I do not think there is any serious ground for objecting to the Bill. I would remind the House that the disadvantage of a single register as compared with two registers is very largely discounted by the provision for postal voting, which is a feature of the 1948 Act. People who move now will be able to vote by post, so that the old problem of the large number of removals on a state register will not be as acute as it was and people will not be under the same disadvantages, as they used to be in being disfranchised because they move.

4.30 p.m.

Mr. Osbert Peake: From this side of the House we have made clear our attitude towards the economy proposals of the Government, namely, that we do not regard the total saving on the Budget of £90 million in a full year as anything like adequate when considered in relation to a Budget figure of £3,400 million. It would be difficult, therefore, for us, maintaining as we do that the economies in total are quite insufficient, to take exception to a particular economy measure other than upon very good grounds. For that reason we support the passage of this Bill.
As the Home Secretary has said, in its detail the Bill follows the provisions of the 1948 Act, the only effective change being to abolish the compilation of the autumn register. I agree with the right hon. Gentleman that if we decide that it is necessary and desirable to abolish one of the two registers it would, in view of the alteration in the dates at which local government elections are to be held in the future, be preferable on balance to abolish the autumn register. Local government elections are held every year and it is right that they should be held upon a register as fresh and up to date as possible.
At the same time, we cannot close our eyes to the fact that over the last generation a far greater number of General Elections have taken place in the autumn than in the spring, and the fact that in future we shall rely upon a register prepared in the spring is bound to mean that the register upon which Parliamentary elections will be fought will always be a considerable number of months out of date if elections in the next generation fall as frequently in the autumn as they have done in the past. This is inevitable if we are reduced to a single register a year, but I cannot challenge the decision that the proper register to be abolished by way of economy is the autumn register.
I should like to know from the right hon. Gentleman the precise amount of the saving to be effected by the Bill. The Home Secretary gave us the figure of £800,000. I am not clear whether that is the saving which will fall upon the national Budget or whether it will be divided between the national budget and the expenditure of local authorities. The Economy (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act, 1926, provided for a single register annually in place of two registers previously. It was then estimated that the saving would be a quarter of a million pounds, and that figure was to be divided equally between the Exchequer and the local authorities. We ought to know whether the £800,000 saved by this Bill will be a saving on the expenditure of the central Government and whether there will be any further saving to be credited to the local authorities.
The only criticism I have to make of the Bill is that it is made permanent in form. While it is true that this follows the precedent of 1926, in 1948 when we passed the Representation of the People Act, Parliament decided that it would be desirable for the future to have two registers prepared each year if possible. Taking the view that we may one day emerge from the present financial crisis, I should have thought it might have been wise to draw this Bill in a temporary form, to enact that the Bill should last two, three or maybe five years, and to put in the Bill as we frequently do, provisions for renewal by Order in Council, or by including it in the Schedule to the Expiring Laws Continuance Bill. I ask the Government to consider between now

and the Committee stage whether it would not be worth while putting a Clause into this Bill to make it of a temporary nature so that the matter will be brought up automatically for review by Parliament in three or four years' time.

4.35 p.m.

Mr. Bing: Before the House parts with this Bill may I deal with one problem which arises by reading the Bill in conjunction with the 1948 Act? Looking at Section 1 (2) of that Act, it will be seen that the people entitled to be registered are those who are resident in the district on the qualifying date who on that date, and on the date of the poll, are of full age. As the qualifying date must always precede the date of the poll it seems at first sight that this provision is not really necessary unless it is intended against my right hon. Friends on the Front Bench who are continually growing younger and younger. However, if one looks at the Act again one sees that the section contains a zeugma, as I think the Home Secretary would have said in his schoolmaster days. Those who are qualified by age must be of age on the qualifying date. The qualification on the date of the poll applies only to those who may be subject to legal incapacity.
What the Bill means, read with the 1948 Act, is that only those people will be able to vote who were 21 on 20th November or, in Scotland, on 1st December, in the year proceeding the issue of the register. That will always mean that there will be about a quarter of a million people—who are 21 years of age and, therefore, entitled to vote—who will not be entitled to vote because, although they were 21 when the register came out in the spring, could not get their names on it in November. If I am right in my calculations, there might be at some time as many as 1,200,000 young people over 21 who will want to vote but are not registered because they cannot get their names on the register. In fact, one could place one's birthday in such an unfortunate way as to be over 22, three months before one could even get on to the register.
Would my right hon. Friend consider making the date of the publication of the register also the date on which a person must be 21 in order to appear


on the register? Or. alternatively—and this would not involve much more expense—having a supplementary list which could come into force, say, every six months providing for people who have then become 21 years of age? There is a somewhat similar provision dealing with Service voters who can make their Service declaration before 21. This is not just a lawyer's point and I did not think of it; it was called to my attention by one of the ward parties of my own Labour Party and it concerns both sides of the House.
In these times it is desirable to give as many people as possible the opportunity of sharing in the government of the country, and it would be unfortunate if, owing to a technicality, people are kept out whom everyone expects to be entitled to vote because they are 21. I hope, therefore, that my right hon. Friend will see if something can be done to get them on the register.

4.40 p.m.

Mr. Keeling: The Home Secretary made the interesting statement that the register to be issued on 15 th March, which will come into force on that date, may well be needed for the next General Election. Now that both the Parliament Bill and the Iron and Steel Bill look as if they will reach the Statute Book before Christmas, may I suggest to the Government that it would be a very great advantage to the public, to business and to other interests, if the Government did not keep us much longer in suspense as to whether the Election will be fought on the register which comes into force on 15th March, or on the register which came into force last month? I can hardly expect the Under-Secretary, if he replies, to make a pronouncement about the exact date of the General Election.

Mr. Peake: Why not?

Mr. Ede: People do make such announcements.

Mr. Keeling: I hope that the Home Secretary, with the leave of the House, may do so, or failing that, that he will represent in the proper quarter that there is no reason for keeping the public any longer in suspense, if not about the actual date, at least as to whether the Election will be fought on the present register, which came into force last month, or on

that which comes into force on 15th March.

4.42 p.m.

Mr. A. Edward Davies: Everybody will agree with the Government's proposal that, as far as possible, money should be saved, but if we agree that it is practicable to have a register only once a year, we need to satisfy ourselves that it is a good register and that no one is omitted from it. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary mentioned the difficulty of canvass work in the compilation of the register. Recently, all householders have been asked to submit details of people resident with them who are qualified to vote. No doubt this information is for the guidance of local registrars. I want to assure myself—and some of my friends in the country are equally anxious about this—that the register will be built up in such a way as to give the maximum opportunities for everyone's name to appear on it.
Let me give an illustration. Suppose that somebody, having filled up a form a few months ago, imagines that it does not very much matter if he does not complete the more recently issued form. What action is taken by the office of the registrar to check returns in comparison with the existing register in order to include people who have omitted to complete the questionnaire? This may sound a somewhat mollycoddling attitude, but there will be many people who are under the impression that, because they have already completed one return, there is no real need for them to submit further details to their town hall.
When the next register is being compiled, will there be some system or measures taken by registrars to see that everybody is included? If there is to be only one register annually, it is important that it should be the best possible register we can compile. We do not want people, to whatever party they belong, to awaken to the fact that when an Election comes along, whether it is in March or in June, they are not on the register. There are many simple people who may not take the precaution of completing their forms, and this is a point about which we ought to be satisfied.

4.44 p.m.

Mr. McKie: I support wholeheartedly what was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Mr.


Keeling) regarding the necessity for having a little more enlightenment before this Debate ends upon the possible date of the Genera] Election. Whilst I express that hope, I am not at all sanguine that the Under-Secretary or the Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland—whoever replies—will be in a position to give that information.
I know from personal knowledge and observation what very great care and trouble have been taken, at any rate by registration officers in Scotland, in preparing the register which is to come into operation on 15th March. Only last Saturday I happened to be talking to one of the registration officers. He seemed a little disconsolate because he thought, owing to what has happened recently in the House, that the General Election might take place before the new register comes into operation. Quite naturally, he felt that a lot of his trouble and meticulous care might have been all in vain so far as the next appeal to the country is concerned. However, I am not very sanguine that anyone from the Government Front Bench will be in a position during this Debate to enlighten my hon. Friend or me on the date of the next Election.
The hon. Member for Hornchurch (Mr. Bing)—who, I am sorry to say, has now left the Chamber—referred to the numbers of those of the younger generation who are about to attain the age of 21 and who may be left out of any future register. I congratulate the hon. Member on having applied his mind to that point and on his general arithmetic, but he and those who agree with him—no doubt some of those sitting behind the Government Front Bench agree with him—will also agree with me that in the compilation of any register there will always be a number of people who perforce must be omitted for some reason or other.
The Home Secretary, in presenting the Bill, alluded to the 1945 Election and the register upon which that great and historic contest—we all agree upon that, whatever view we take about its lamentable results—was waged. I ventured to interject that it was a very imperfect register. The right hon. Gentleman, hearing my intervention, saw fit to say that he and I must both take joint responsibility for that because he was Home Secretary in the National

Government which was responsible for the compilation of that register. That was scarcely a good or fair debating point.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Mr. Bowles): I have let the Debate go rather wide in respect of the speeches of every hon. Member who has spoken, but it does boil itself down to a question of whether we shall have one register or two. I think that the hon. Member for Hornchurch (Mr. Bing) was relevant in discussing the effect of the spread-over for one year. The hon. Member for Twickenham (Mr. Keeling) was just in Order, but only just.

Mr. McKie: I did not wish to transgress, but was only replying to the point which was made by the Home Secretary, which I answer by saying that we all agree that the 1945 register—

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: The hon. Member must not refer to that.

Mr. McKie: You having ruled, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, that I must not refer to that again, although the Home Secretary did so in his speech, I must leave it at that, and I must take it that the right hon. Gentleman was going rather wide of the argument in alluding to that at all.
Having said that, I express the hope that the coming register will be much more perfect than the last one and that in consequence of the very meticulous care expended upon it very few people will be omitted. I sincerely hope that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Woodford (Mr. Churchill) will be on the next register, for he was not on it in 1945.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: The hon. Member will now resume his seat. Mr. Skeffington-Lodge.

Mr. McKie: On a point of Order. With very great respect, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, I sincerely hope that you will allow me to proceed with my speech, because you had not ruled me out of Order.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: The hon. Member does not know what he is saying. Twice I have told him that he must not refer to the 1945 register, whether it is a good or a bad register. The third time he did so I asked him to resume his seat.

Mr. McKie: I was going to make another point. May I not continue?

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: That must be quite final.

4.50 p.m.

Mr. Skeffington-Lodge: The object of this Bill will find agreement on all sides of the House, but there is a difficulty in regard to the register of electors about which I should like my hon. Friend to say something. At present forms are sent to people at their different residences. I have had one at my residence in London and one in respect of my residence in Brighton. That means that if I filled in both I would appear on the register both in Kensington and in Brighton, and, unless I happened to know, as a great many people do not know, that the principle is one man, one vote—

Mr. McKie: On a point of Order. With very great respect—and I hope, Sir, you will recognise that this is not in any way a transgression of the Rules of Order—may I say, Sir, that you never warned me, but asked me to resume my seat without a warning.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: I do not know what the hon. Member's argument is now. Does he always require warning three times before he obeys the Ruling of the Chair?

Mr. McKie: I have been in this House many years, but have never heard an hon. Member requested to resume his seat before being warned by the Chair that if he persisted he would be asked to resume his seat.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: It is a very good precedent that I have set.

Mr. Skeffington-Lodge: These constant interruptions by the hon. Member opposite are a little trying if I am to develop my argument, and I hope he will do me the courtesy of keeping his seat during the rest of my remarks. If the principle of one man, one vote, is to be respected, some machinery ought to be devised whereby a person's name appears only on one register for one constituency. It would be possible as I have said for me to be on the register in Kensington and in Brighton and it would, therefore, be possible to cast a vote in both places. There are some people who have three residences and whose names therefore

will feature on the registers in three constituencies.
This is an anomaly to obviate which I cannot suggest machinery, but it is something to which my hon. Friend should address himself. It might be possible for voters to be asked to take an oath that they have only voted once. There are people in the country who at all costs are determined to get rid of His Majesty's Government and for those people the arrangement I am describing would definitely present a very real temptation to break the law. I would not trust a good many of them not to take advantage of it.

Mr. Peake: On a point of Order. May I have a Ruling as to whether this speech has any reference to the question of whether there should be two registers, or one register?

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: The hon. Member for Bedford (Mr. Skeffington-Lodge) is talking about the next register and the compilation of the autumn register. He is now asking that when the Committee stage is reached, some amendment should be made to the Bill as it now stands. That is a perfectly good Second Reading point.

Mr. Skeffington-Lodge: Yes, Sir, I was trying to make the point that the new register which will be compiled under this Bill should be a good and proper register for the whole country and should not feature the names of people more than once. I have already stated that there are people who are anxious to take advantage of every opportunity of getting rid of the Government. I think they are most mistaken and stupid, but I feel that a temptation would be presented to them to do the wrong thing if they could get round the regulations as they so easily can in the way I name.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: The hon. Member must not bring in political bias here. This is purely a machinery Bill and he must keep to the point about the fairness of the register.

Mr. Skeffington-Lodge: I am sorry. I think I have made the point and I should like my hon. Friend to address himself to it in his reply. I put a Question to the Home Secretary on this matter in the House the other day and he merely told me that the law would deal with people who did not put into practice the rule


of one man, one vote. It is all very well to say that, but there should be some means established whereby the law can if need be be enforced.

4.55 p.m.

Mr. Marlowe: I fully understand the question raised by the hon. Member for Bedford (Mr. Skeffington-Lodge) of one vote in Kensington and one in Brighton. I can quite understand his sense of utter futility in using that vote in either place.
I should like the Under-Secretary to explain a point in subsection (6) of Clause 1. That Clause, in effect, says that if the register has not been printed at the time an election takes place, the old register may be used, and if parts only of the new register have been printed, I understand that parts of the old register and parts of the new register might be used. Either of those contingencies seems utterly absurd. We could not possibly have an election in those circumstances. I should like the hon. Gentleman to tell the House why this Clause is in the Bill and whether it is really necessary. I understand that it was in the 1948 Act. It is understandable that it should be in that Act, but is it really required now, or is the provision merely duplicated because it was in the 1948 Act? It seems to me that no one can contemplate contesting an election on a register in circumstances such as are envisaged by this subsection. The House would like to hear what the hon. Gentleman has to say in explanation of that.
Perhaps the hon. Gentleman could also inform the House whether the subsection means that there is any doubt whether the register will be printed in due time. Unless there is any doubt, there is no sense in having the Clause. Will the hon. Gentleman say why the Clause appears and whether it does not convey even the risk that the register might not be printed at the proper time? As I have to go to a public meeting and must leave in order to catch a train, I hope the hon. Gentleman will not think me discourteous in any way if I am not here to hear his reply, for which I shall look in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

4.59 p.m.

Mr. Awbery: It may be that a young man or woman reaches

the age of 21 on the day after the closing of the register, and this may mean that that young person will be unable to vote at a General Election for five years. I suggest that we should adopt some method of dealing with them. Under the Bill there is to be one register a year, but I suggest that consideration should be given to those young people and that the list should be laid open periodically—say every three or six months—for young men and women reaching the age of 21 to sign on a supplementary register, which could be used when a municipal or Parliamentary election takes place. I ask the Under-Secretary to give consideration to that point.

5.0 p.m.

Mr. Drayson: I am in full agreement with the general purposes of the Bill to abolish the autumn register and to have one register in each year. I should, however, like to express the hope which has been expressed by other Members that this one register will be a good one. I apologise to the Home Secretary for not having heard the concluding remarks in his speech. I telephoned my constituency to get the latest figures of their electoral register for October, 1949. I found that in the register for October, 1948, there were 53,060 names, whereas in October this year the number is 51,042, a discrepancy of over 2,000 voters in a year. I am convinced that 2,000 people have not left my constituency during the past 12 months.
I do not wish what I say to be regarded as any reflection on the electoral registration officer, whom I know personally. These officers are, in many cases, local government officials who have many other important duties to carry out, and whose staff is not always fully equipped to deal with this additional burden. The Government might well look into the question of whether some extra clerical assistance could not be forthcoming on these occasions.
One of the reasons why the current register which we have is so deficient, is that it is compiled from Form A, which is sent out on the basis of the previous register. If a mistake occurred in the previous register, and it happened that perhaps a number of houses in a street and their occupants were completely omitted through a typographical error or


some other cause, those people will fail to receive Form A when that return has to be made for the March register. I know that there are provisions in the other Act whereby these errors can be put right by calls being made at the houses in question, but if those houses are not recorded on the previous register how can the persons who are employed to make the necessary calls know when an error is likely to arise? In rural districts, and I represent a vast rural area, it is impossible for these individuals to visit all the outlying farms, cottages and hamlets where the occupants may have failed to fill in Form A and return it.
I wish the Government would look at this point because I am sure that many of the 2,000 names which are now missing from the electoral register of my constituency are those of people in the rural districts. Form A has just been sent out once again in connection with the March register, and I can imagine many people saying, "I filled in this form in the summer," thinking that the latest form has been sent to them on the mistaken assumption they failed to fill it in on the previous occasion. As they had sent it in on that occasion, however, they think that there is surely no need to bother further about it.
I wish that it were possible to include in this Measure some tightening-up of the procedure. I believe that those who fail to fill in Form A and return it to the registration officer are liable to a fine. There might be some advantage in reversing the procedure and fining the registration officer for every individual he fails to put on his register, because the machinery is at his disposal and it is up to him to see that his canvassers go round and do the job thoroughly.
There does not appear to be any real check on this system. The hon. Member for Bedford (Mr. Skeffington-Lodge) desired checks to be applied as he felt that members of his party might, in their unbounded enthusiasm, be tempted to vote in more than one place at the election. I am sure that they will resist his highly improper suggestion. I ask the Government to look at this matter and see if they cannot achieve a system whereby we have greater accuracy in this new register which is to be compiled in March.

5.5 p.m.

Mr. Hurd: I wish to deal with one small point which is worrying some of my constituents, and which will have particular force now that we are to have one register annually instead of two. A few names have, by reason of printers' errors, been omitted from the new register which is now in force. The canvass was correct, the names went correctly into the registration office, but owing to printers' errors these electors do not now appear on the list. That is causing some concern and of course disappointment to those persons. I ask the Home Secretary, if he is considering the preparation of any kind of supplementary register, to take account of those who reach the age of 21 just after the compilation of the register, etc.; also to arrange for the inclusion in that supplementary register any bona fide mechanical slip which is not the fault of the elector or the canvassers.

5.6 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Younger): Every one on all sides of the House has accepted the principle of this Bill albeit no doubt with reluctance. We all appreciate that if the expense and work involved had not to be considered it would be better to have, as we decided in the 1948 discussions, two registers a year. No one has disputed that the proposal in this Bill is a reasonable form of economy. Some of the Rulings on Order which you have given, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, indicate that this is indeed a Bill with a narrow purpose. It is intended only to provide for the change from two registers per year to one and for any detailed consequential Amendments.
Most of the points which have been raised by hon. Members on all sides have been essentially Committee points, although I am bound to say that my right hon. Friend might be somewhat reluctant to look with a kindly eye upon some of them, even if they are proposed at a later stage, because it would not be appropriate, so soon after the passage of the major Act, to enter into a series of minor matters of electoral administration many of which were considered at that time.
I shall begin by answering first the question asked by the right hon. Member for North Leeds (Mr. Peake) about the


saving which, is anticipated. The figure of £800,000 which has been given covers both the local and the central expenditure; it is the total saving which is anticipated.

Mr. Peake: Is that divided equally?

Mr. Younger: Yes, 50-50.
The second point which the right hon. Gentleman raised was whether it would not be better to include a Clause putting this Bill on a temporary basis. That is a matter which can be considered, but in thinking this matter over and after experiencing the administrative difficulties since the major Bill was passed, my right hon. Friend feels that the drain on manpower which is caused by making two registers a year is considerable. Moreover, my right hon. Friend called attention in his remarks to the postal voting arrangements, which make it perhaps rather less important—I would not put it higher than that—that there should be two registers than it might previously have been. At the moment I do not think that my right hon. Friend is inclined to favour the possibility of putting this Bill in a temporary form.
Nearly all the other points were concerned with the anxieties of hon. Members that this register should be as good as possible. My hon. Friend the Member for Burslem (Mr. Edward Davies) asked what sort of checking is done by registration officers and their staffs if they have received the first preliminary forms to which reference has been made. I am informed they do a great deal of checking by canvasses, particularly where a return has not been received from an address where persons have previously been registered or where there have been changes in the register. How much checking they can do must be a matter for the discretion of registration officers. They can only do what the extent of their staff permits them to do. No doubt the matter is not quite uniformly dealt with throughout the country, but I am assured that every possible step is taken to check up on the particulars given in these forms.
My hon. Friend the Member for Hornchurch (Mr. Bing) and my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol Central (Mr. Awbery) both raised questions relating to

young persons becoming 21 after the qualifying date. The House may remember that when the Committee on Electoral Registration considered the whole of this matter it did, among other things, consider whether it was possible to find some method of keeping the register up to date from week to week or month to month as an alternative to having a revision once or twice a year. Reasons were set out in the report showing that administratively there was a good deal of difficulty, and because they were unable to devise machinery of that kind they recommended a register every six months. I am afraid that many of those administrative objections apply to the sort of suggestions put forward by my hon. Friends.
The objection of my hon. Friend the Member for Bedford (Mr. Skeffington-Lodge) that persons should not be registered as residents at more than one address is not a new matter arising out of the proposal that there should be one register instead of two. It is not connected with any particular feature of this Bill. It raises considerable administrative difficulties, particularly as regards enforcement, when one considers that if a particular person's name is put down in more than one place it may not always be that person who fills in all the forms. Therefore that makes it exceedingly difficult to check.
The only other point to which I was asked to reply was that raised by the hon. and learned Member for Brighton (Mr. Marlowe) who asked about Clause 1, subsection (6) which provides against the possibility that there might be some part of the register not published on the necessary date. I am sure that the hon. and learned Member will agree that it is necessary in drafting a Bill to make provision for every eventuality. It is unlikely that a date would be so chosen for an election as to make this provision necessary, but if in fact it did occur that the printing of a particular part of the register was late it might happen that an election was taking place. I think it is right that there should be some machinery in the Bill for dealing with such a situation, though I agree with the hon. and learned Gentleman that one would hope such a contingency would never arise. One certainly does not anticipate that the printing of these registers generally will be in arrears. But I think that the recent register was


at any rate in some areas, some days late. and one has to provide against that sort of contingency. That explains why it was put in, and it is, as the hon. and learned Gentleman said, no more than repetition of what has been in previous Acts, including the 1948 Act.

Mr. Keeling: Did we corectly understand the hon. Gentleman to say that the saving of £800,000 which will flow from this Bill is only half a saving to the Exchequer and the other half a saving to the rates? If so, why were we told by the Prime Minister when he announced this cut that there would be a saving of £800,000 to the Exchequer?

Mr. Younger: I cannot say without notice precisely what my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister did say in that respect. I was asked a question to which I have given an accurate answer. Without looking it up, I cannot accept what was said on a previous occasion.

Orders of the Day — PUBLIC WORKS LOANS [REMISSION OF DEBT]

Resolution reported:
That, for the purpose of any Act of the present Session relating to local loans, it is expedient to authorise the remission of unpaid balances of principal due to the Public Works Loan Commissioners in respect of loans to Braintree Co-operative Homes. Ltd., Murcot Co-operative (Housing) Society Ltd. and George Thomas Willows.

Orders of the Day — PUBLIC WORKS LOANS BILL

Considered in Committee; reported without Amendment: read the Third time, and passed.

Orders of the Day — AGRICULTURAL HOLDINGS (SCOTLAND) BILL [Lords]

Considered in Committee; reported without Amendment: read the Third time, and passed without Amendment.

Orders of the Day — MARRIAGE BILL [Lords]

Considered in Committee; reported without Amendment: read the Third time, and passed without Amendment.

Orders of the Day — WAYS AND MEANS

Considered in Committee.

[Mr. BOWLES in the Chair]

Orders of the Day — ARMED FORTIES (HOUSING LOANS)

5.21 p.m.

The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Glenvil Hall): I beg to move:
That it is expedient—
(a) to authorise the Treasury, during the five years ending on the thirty-first day of March, nineteen hundred and fifty-five, to issue out of the Consolidated Fund sums not exceeding in the aggregate forty million pounds, to be applied as appropriations in aid of moneys provided by Parliament for those years for the provision of approved housing accommodation in Great Britain for married persons serving in, or employed in connection with, the armed forces of the Crown, being accommodation the cost of the provision of which would otherwise fall to be defrayed out of moneys provided by Parliament for the defence services:
Provided that the amounts so issued for any year to defray Navy, Army or Air Force expenditure in respect of the provision of approved housing accommodation in Great Britain for persons serving in, or employed in connection with, the Royal Navy or Royal Marines, the Army or the Air Force, as the case may be, shall not at any date exceed the aggregate of the amounts proposed to be so issued to defray that expenditure by the estimates upon which this House has, before that date, resolved to grant sums to His Majesty to defray that expenditure for that year;
(b) to authorise the Treasury, for the purpose of providing sums (or any part of sums) to be issued as mentioned in the foregoing paragraph, or of providing for the replacement of all or any part of sums so issued, to raise money in any manner in which they are authorised to raise money under the National Loans Act, 1939, and to provide that any securities created and issued accordingly shall be deemed for all purposes to have been created and issued under that Act;
(c) to provide for the repayment to the Exchequer, out of moneys provided by Parliament for the defence services, of the sums issued as aforesaid, together with interest thereon;
(d) to provide for the issue out of the Consolidated Fund of sums paid into the Exchequer under the last foregoing paragraph and the application of sums so issued in redemption or repayment of debt, or, in so far as they represent interest, in payment of interest otherwise payable out of the permanent annual charge for the National Debt.
For the purpose of this Resolution the expression "approved" means approved by the Treasury, and the expression "the defence services" means the Navy, Army and Air services.
The Minister of Defence had intended to move this Motion but he has not yet arrived. The Motion authorises the Treasury, during the five years ending on 31st March, 1955, to issue out of the Consolidated Fund sums not exceeding in the aggregate £40 million to be applied as appropriations in aid of moneys provided by Parliament for the provision of approved housing accommodation in Great Britain for married people serving in, or employed in connection with, the Armed Forces of the Crown. As is indicated, the word "approved" means approved by the Treasury.
The Motion fixes the maximum sum that can be applied. This provision applies only to Great Britain and not to Northern Ireland. The appropriations in aid will go towards the original Estimates or any Supplementary Estimates which may be agreed to by this Committee. There is a proviso to the first paragraph to the effect that no borrowed money can be spent on married quarters in any year until Parliament has approved the Estimates for that year. It is proposed to have in the Estimates for each of the three Defence Services a separate new Vote under which will be shown both the gross expenditure proposed and the loan moneys to be appropriated in aid of that expenditure.
Married quarters in Great Britain which constitute especial Service requirements and are not regarded as being available to serve the general housing needs of the community, will continue to be financed in the ordinary way from Votes, as of course will any housing accommodation which falls to be provided for Forces of the Crown that happen to be abroad. The other parts of the Motion are in what is called common form. Paragraph (b) authorises the Treasury, for the purpose of providing sums to be issued as mentioned earlier, or for providing for the replacement of all or any part of sums so issued, to raise money in any manner in which money is authorised to be raised under the National Loans Act, 1939.
This proposal is one which has already received approval in all quarters of the Committee. I have here details of a number of Questions asked over a period by Members of all parties who have realised the great need for providing

proper housing accommodation both for officers and men now serving in the Forces and for those who may be attracted to serve if quarters are provided. The suggestion put forward by the Minister of Defence is, I think, one which will commend itself to Members in all parts of the Committee. This is a nonparty issue and I commend this Motion most heartily

5.28 p.m.

Mr. Emrys Hughes: I think that we ought to have rather more information from the Minister of Defence. This appears to be a harmless sort of Motion, but I have some doubts which I hope the Minister will clear up. I want to know why this legislation is necessary. Is it not an attempt to camouflage our expenditure on Defence? Is not one of the reasons behind this Motion the fact that now, after many protests, we have come to regard the Minister of Defence as the most profligate, spendthrift and extravagant Minister we have?

The Deputy-Chairman: The comments of the hon. Member are not relevant to the Question. This Motion relates to the provision of married quarters for members of the Armed Forces. The hon. Gentleman must not go anything like as wide as that. He is quite out of Order.

Mr. Hughes: That, Mr. Bowles, was a sort of preliminary exploration.

The Deputy-Chairman: I hope that the subsequent remarks of the hon. Member will be more in Order than his preliminary remarks.

Mr. Hughes: Yes. Now I understand exactly where I stand. I suggest that the Committee should know whether this is an attempt to give an impression that reductions are being made in the Defence Estimates. As I understand the position, this will mean that expenditure will now be put to the account of the Consolidated Fund when, otherwise, it would have been borne on the Defence Estimates. That will give the impression that the Estimates have been reduced. In fact, the position will have been camouflaged. I ask the Minister to assure us that this is not a piece of financial jugglery similar, in a way, to the famous raid on the Road Fund. I want to be sure that this is justified from the point of view of sound business.
It seems to me to be very suspicious that this Resolution comes along as a sort of reaction to the economy campaign. I want to know exactly what is going to happen if we adopt this kind of finance. It seems to me that this time we are to some extent taking away housing and putting it on a different account, and that if the same procedure were adopted in regard to other items of military defence expenditure, for example, where we have an ambulance service and a service of doctors, we could transfer them to the Ministry of Health Vote. Where we have certain items such as coal and electricity, what is to prevent the Minister, if we pass this proposal, discovering next year that this device had been so successful that the coal and electricity required by the Army were to be borne on the Vote of the Ministry of Fuel and Power? In that case, the Minister of Defence would come along as a Minister who, on paper at any rate, appeared to have made considerable economies but in fact had not done so.
We have had various reasons given for this Resolution, and what I want to know is whether, in the campaign for increased housing, we are to regard the Minister of Defence as an ally or as an enemy. I hope we are going to regard him as coming along with the greatest enthusiasm to build houses, not only for the troops, but for other sections of the population as well. Here I want to submit to the Minister certain difficulties that arise. We heard the Minister make the case, when the Resolution was introduced, that it was necessary in the interests of morale. I should like to have a categorical assurance from the Minister that he is not forgetting the morale of other people who are also interested in defence. For example, I ask the Minister of Defence whether he is interested in the economy of the country when he is proposing to take away building labour in order to build these married quarters for the soldiers? If he were building houses, say, for miners, he would be doing something which indirectly would help the morale of the nation, but actually what he proposes to do will reduce it.
I want to ask the Minister one or two questions about Scotland, of which I gave notice on the Order Paper. Those questions I withdrew because I understood that the Minister was going to deal with the matter in the Debate this after-

noon. What help can we expect from him in trying to get the necessary labour force to build these married quarters in Scotland? I am not opposed to building married quarters for any section of the community which needs them. I quite agree that, if the Minister calls up sailors, soldiers and airmen, it becomes his primary duty to have them decently housed. When we assume that that is the Minister's duty, I ask him what steps he is taking to see that there is in Scotland a proper labour force to build the married quarters required there? Is he satisfied that in Scotland at the present time there are all kinds of building workers—plasterers, joiners and bricklayers—sufficient enough for this work without encroaching on the needs of the civil population?
Here, I submit, there is a mystery which the Minister did not elucidate in his statement today. We have been given to understand that there is to be a speed-up in the building of married quarters, and that, at the same time, there is to be no depletion of the ranks of building workers who are building houses for miners, agricultural workers and other sections of the community. In Scotland we are up against a very difficult task in ensuring that this labour force is there, and I ask the Minister whether he is prepared to consider this proposition. At the present time, he is calling up apprentices in the building trades as soon as they complete their apprenticeship, when they are handed over to the Defence Forces. What becomes of them? Are they being used to any extent in building married quarters for the Army, Navy and Air Force, or is the Minister just calling up people haphazard, including good bricklayers, plasterers and joiners, and in the Armed Forces turning them into cooks?

Earl Winterton: On a point of Order. I understand that the hon. Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes) is now dealing with the method of calling up people for the Army, and I also understand that this Ways and Means Resolution relates purely to the erection of houses by civilian labour. How, therefore, can the calling up of people for the Army affect that?

The Deputy-Chairman: I have listened very carefully to the hon. Gentleman, who started by asking what the Minister was


going to do about the building of married quarters. He is confining himself to Scotland, as he is quite entitled to do, and he is suggesting that the calling up of people for the Forces may affect the building of houses in Scotland. I think he is quite in Order in that respect.

Mr. Hughes: Thank you, Mr. Bowles; I am considerably relieved.

Earl Winterton: I think this Resolution provides for houses being built by civilian labour. It does not provide for houses being built by military labour.

The Deputy-Chairman: I may be wrong, but, as I understand it, we are proposing to spend £40 million on married quarters for the Forces. The hon. Gentleman has, so far, confined himself to Scotland, and he is saying that in Scotland there is a threat of a serious shortage of building operatives. He is asking how the Minister will get the married quarters when, by calling men into the Forces, it may well be that there is less building labour available for building them. I think that is quite in Order.

Mr. Hughes: I have never heard my case put so admirably. From now on, Mr. Bowles, my respect for the Chair is greater than ever. I think the noble Lord the Member for Horsham (Earl Winterton) will now understand what I am driving at. I submit that at the end of my speech he will come forward as an ally in an attempt to get something satisfactory from the Minister of Defence. The noble Lord and I start from the same assumption—that, if the Minister of Defence is calling up airmen and soldiers, he must be careful that they are decently housed. We both start from that assumption, and I believe that the noble Lord and I agree that this should be as expeditious as possible.
The first question which I directed to the Minister was whether he was satisfied with regard to the labour and materials for the building of married quarters for the Armed Forces. Can these married quarters for the Armed Forces be obtained without encroaching on the urgent needs of the civilian population? I want to argue that that matter needs to be cleared up so far as Scotland is concerned. I suggest that, if

the Minister of Defence is to spend £40 million, he must have a very big programme in mind. He wants to see these new houses built so as to increase the morale of the people who go into the Armed Forces. I want to know how they will be built, because the noble Lord seems to think that they will be built by military labour. Is that so?
If they are not to be built by military labour, then they have to be built by trained building workers, and, if the Minister is to make a success of his programme, I suggest to him that he should leave in the building industry the bricklayers, plasterers and joiners who will be needed to carry out that programme. The Minister in charge of housing in Scotland is already very much alarmed at the way the building labour force is being steadily depleted. I want to quote to the Minister of Defence the statement by the Under-Secretary of State, responsible for building in Scotland, at a recent meeting at Clydebank. He said:
I am now more than a little concerned—I am alarmed at the rather low rate of completions during the past month or two. Last year it was a record year for the building industry and it produced "—

The Deputy-Chairman: The hon. Gentleman must not go into too much detail on this. He can go into the fact that he alleges that there is a shortage of building labour in Scotland, but he cannot go into details like this.

Mr. Hughes: The last time I ventured to make a quotation, the Minister told me to go on quoting.

The Deputy-Chairman: In this Debate I am telling the hon. Gentleman.

Mr. Hughes: The two Ministers were engaged on the same task except that this Minister wants to increase the number of married quarters for the Defence Forces and the other Minister was interested in increasing the building force in the interests of the civilian population. To put it shortly, the Minister then said that there was an alarming drop in the number of building workers in Scotland. I have tried to get the Minister of Labour and the Minister of Defence to call a halt to this utterly ridiculous and uneconomic procedure of calling up building workers and putting them to jobs in which they are not trained.

The Deputy-Chairman: The hon. Member cannot argue an alteration in the law. It would require legislation to exempt people from call-up. Therefore, the hon. Member should confine himself, as he was doing before, to getting an answer to the question which he put to the Minister. He should not argue the case that conscription should not apply to certain civilian workers. The only question before the Committee at the moment is whether £40 million should be provided by Parliament for the building of married quarters for members of the Armed Forces.

Mr. Hughes: Precisely, Sir, but I want to know whether the Minister of Defence contemplates introducing new legislation or amending the old legislation in order to ensure getting the necessary labour force. The point I wish to impress upon him is that he will not get the houses he needs if he is going to sit idly by while people competent to build are put on other jobs in the Forces.
The Minister intimated in the statement which he made earlier today that when these houses were completed, they would be at the disposal of the civilian population. I should like to know whether it is going to work the other way about. In some parts of the country the Ministry of Defence have had housing accommodation in camps at their disposal which is now lying derelict. I should like the right hon. Gentleman to say whether the accommodation not required for the Armed Forces in different parts of the country is to be used for housing the civilian population. I should also like to ask what expenditure is to be made on each house. I ask that, because we in Scotland are being asked to accept a reduced standard in housing. Are not these married Service men entitled to decent houses, or will they have to submit to the new regulations which I understand are to affect the civilian population?
Are the houses to be two, three or four-apartment houses? I submit that if we are to build two and three-apartment houses for officers in the Services, we shall have the same overcrowded conditions perpetuated in Service life. Are we not entitled to know the estimated cost per house? Are we to have brigadiers and their families put into two-apartment houses? If we are not going to put

brigadiers into two-apartment houses, then we shall have to revise our ideas about the civilian population.
I have no doubt that other hon. Members are beginning to wonder how the Minister will solve this problem, and I hope he will attempt to give us some satisfactory answers to these questions. How is he going to build these married quarters if he has not a sufficient building force? Will he give an assurance that building workers will not be taken away from the urgent and pressing needs of the civilian population?

5.46 p.m.

General Sir George Jeffreys: I welcome this Motion and the prospect of a Bill to give effect to the authorisation to borrow for the building of married quarters. The problem of how quarters are to be provided for their married people is no new problem for commanders in the Army, although it has certainly been very much accentuated in these latter days by the largely increased numbers of married personnel compared with the numbers in the past. It is further accentuated by the frequent changes of stations which fall to the lot of present-day units and individuals.
It is by no means unusual for a married soldier to be moved at short notice from a station in which he has only just settled down with his family to another station, perhaps a hutment camp, where there are no married quarters close by and where, if accommodation is available at all, it may possibly be many miles distant from the camp or hutments, as the case may be. I heard quite recently of a certain camp in the North of England—it was a hutment camp constructed during the war—where there were practically no married quarters at all. The married people in that camp—a considerable number—had to be brought in by lorry or bus from a town no less than 20 miles distant and taken back in the same way in the evening.
I need not stress the immense importance of providing married quarters in the close vicinity of the barracks or camps where the married soldiers are serving. I would particularly stress the importance of such quarters for those—usually officers, senior warrant officers, and non-commissioned officers or their equivalent ranks in the Navy—who have responsible duties to perform which keep


them for long and sometimes irregular hours in camps or barracks. There was always difficulty in the past in getting buildings authorised, not only for married soldiers, but for all kinds of purposes when they had to be included in the annual Estimates of revenue expenditure. Buildings were always the first things to be cut. Whenever there was a shortage of money—and there nearly always was when it came to the point, as I am sure the Minister will know even better than I—the first things that had to go were the buildings. Sometimes items of building used to appear as projected year by year with the utmost regularity, and year by year they were put back because the money necessary for their erection was not available. I am afraid that when it came to the question of Revenue expenditure buildings were generally put low on the list.
Under the present Motion, and the Bill that is to follow it, whereby money is to be borrowed for the provision of married quarters, it seems to me that there is a real prospect of an appreciable number of these quarters being erected where they are wanted. A large number of married quarters have been, so to speak, put out of action by the old barracks which they adjoined, or of which they formed part, being practically disused in modern circumstances, mobile units having been put in camps which have no married quarters and very few other amenities.
I think the real problem of getting the quarters that we want looks like being solved and that we will be getting them by legitimate means. In the past to my personal knowledge, on some occasions—I do not say it was done on a large scale—various devices were used to ensure that buildings should be definitely begun. I know of actual cases—I can think of one in particular—in which the commander concerned employed the device of getting the foundations dug. There was a little money which enabled him, largely with military labour, to get the foundations dug for a very considerable building, which had again and again been put back low in the list of priorities. By digging the foundations it became a "continuation service," as the expression was, and it had to go on. That is the sort of device which I think was justifiable from the point of view of the com-

manders themselves, but it is far better that provision should be made for necessary building and for borrowing all the money necessary for the erection of the buildings. I only hope that no means will be found of scaling down the provision of money for buildings which are most urgently necessary for all the Services to my certain knowledge.

5.53 p.m.

Dr. Haden Guest: As the hon. and gallant Member for Petersfield (Sir G. Jeffreys) has said, the Committee should welcome this Motion providing for married quarters.' It is one of the really urgent things which require to be done in order to give some reasonable basis of stability and sense of being really looked after, to those in the Forces who are married and who require married quarters. I do not think many hon. Members can know of the extraordinarily antiquated almost archaeological curiosities which still exist. May I mention that I was actually asked when attached to Eastern Command, to certify as fit for human habitation at Eastern Command headquarters, buildings which date back to the Crimean War?

Mr. Willis: We have got some in Scotland which date back to the Rebellion.

Dr. Guest: That is the more reason why Scottish Members should shake off their prejudices and be anxious to get on with the provision of decent housing and decent married quarters. I was obliged to condemn those quarters as being quite unfit for human habitation.
I do not propose to deal with the arguments of the hon. Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes) against the building of married quarters. I would only say this. The married members of the Armed Forces are just as much entitled to the provision of houses as any other members of the community, and at the present time they have considerably less accommodation of this nature. It is always the case in London and in every large city that there are certain priorities with regard to housing. There have to be priorities. One of those priorities is to provide housing for the families of those in the Armed Forces.
Let me say, as must be quite obvious to every hon. Member, including, I hope, the hon. Member for South Ayrshire, that if people in the Forces who are married


are given quarters adjacent to the places where they are working—and incidentally they should be not only adjacent to the stations to which they are attached but also reasonably adjacent to town and shopping facilities and so forth—the difficulties of housing will be relieved in a good many towns. I do not know whether the hon. Member for South Ayrshire finds that people who belong to the Armed Forces are competing for accommodation with the ordinary civilian population in his Division, but that certainly is the case in London to a very considerable extent. It would be a great relief to many housing authorities if this difficulty with regard to the provision of housing for the Armed Forces were met in this way.
What the hon. and gallant Member for Petersfield said about transport is correct. I recently had the opportunity to visit a considerable number of the areas in this country where troops are employed, and in some of those places the men have had to be brought in for considerable distances because of the lack of housing. It is obvious that if transport is employed, time and money is wasted unnecessarily and the Estimates are inflated, which I am sure the hon. Member for South Ayrshire does not wish.
It seems to me that to oppose this Motion is not only unnecessary but almost ridiculous. We have an Army, a Navy and an Air Force, and we must have them. Most of us support the maintenance of those Forces, and it is absolutely essential that the married personnel in them should have that decent accommodation which every human being ought to have. I am sure that even the hon. Member for South Ayrshire will agree that those in the Armed Forces are human beings, and deserve ordinary human treatment. I suggest that these frivolous suggestions of the hon. Member for South Ayrshire are directed, not towards helping to solve the housing difficulty but merely towards damaging the possibilities of our maintaining Armed Forces at all, because of his well-known pacifist convictions. He would like to see us without any Army, Navy or Air Force, in order, perhaps, that we may be open to visits from some of his friends from elsewhere.

Mr. Emrys Hughes: May I ask the hon. Member to explain exactly what he means by my friends elsewhere?

Dr. Guest: I mean people from abroad with whom, I presume, the hon. Member is in contact, and who might desire to come in and invade this country.

Mr. Hughes: Who does the hon. Member mean?

Dr. Guest: I leave that to the hon. Gentleman's own intelligence.

Mr. Willis: On a point of Order, Mr. Bowles. Is it in Order for the hon. Member to accuse my hon. Friend the Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes) of being in contact with friends abroad who are anxious to invade this country?

The Deputy-Chairman: I must say that I did not hear the hon. Member say that. I was reading something. I think it had better not be repeated.

Dr. Guest: I will not repeat that. I must confess that I was only talking about ideological contact, and nothing else. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] I mean that quite seriously. I suggest that we should not allow ourselves to be side-tracked by any propaganda of that kind against what is an essential and necessary duty of the country to provide proper married quarters. I believe that the Committee will feel that the provision of married quarters is very desirable, that it ought to have been done many years ago, and that it will create the very greatest possible benefit not only in the Forces but among the civilian population, because we shall be accommodating individuals who otherwise would have to be provided for in competition with the very urgent and severe housing needs of many civilians. I strongly support this Motion.

6.0 p.m.

Earl Winterton: Because I wanted to listen to some of the Debate, I did not avail myself of the custom—of course, it is only a -custom and not a Rule—'that a Member of this Front Bench should speak after the Minister has spoken. I think there is nothing between the Government and ourselves on this Resolution. I was immensely amused and intensely pleased to see that there was a difference of opinion between an hon. Member opposite—the hon. Member for North Islington (Dr. Guest)—and some of his hon. Friends, who adopted the attitude towards him which they usually adopt towards me. It is


always interesting for members of my party to see that state of affairs. I am not surprised at it, because the Socialist Party has always consisted of two sections, one patriotic, like the hon. Member for North Islington, and one, shall we say; less interested in defence matters.

The Deputy-Chairman: The noble Lord had better leave that point.

Earl Winterton: I presume I can make a reference to this. May I put a point of Order? Is that permitted?

The Deputy-Chairman: Yes.

Earl Winterton: I presume I may make a reference to what has been said by the hon. Member for North Islington. I understand you are suggesting, Mr. Bowles, that I am not allowed to comment on it.

The Deputy-Chairman: The noble Lord knows what he said. I ordered the hon. Member for North Islington (Dr. Guest) not to continue talking in the same way as that in which he was talking. The noble Lord is referring to some members of the Labour Party being patriotic and some not. That is a quite long way from the Resolution which we are discussing. The noble Lord has made his statement: he must not go on with it.

Earl Winterton: Is it not in Order, on an occasion like this, to refer to the attitude of hon. Members as being that some are in favour of the Resolution, because they are in favour of the defence of the country, and some are not in favour of it?

The Deputy-Chairman: I think that might be in Order, but the noble Lord should not refer at all to an hon. Member as being unpatriotic.

Earl Winterton: I intend to persist in my point of Order, as I am perfectly entitled to do. The Deputy-Chairman says I was out of Order. I am asking for your guidance, Mr. Bowles, so that I may make my speech without being out of Order, and I ask whether it would be in Order to refer to the fact that some hon. Members are more in favour of the defence of this country than others.

The Deputy-Chairman: That would be in Order, but it would not be in Order

to refer to any hon. Member as being unpatriotic. I think that would be an unparliamentary word.

Earl Winterton: I am very much obliged to you, Mr. Bowles. I will, therefore, alter the form of my sentence and say that it is interesting to me to observe, not for the first time, that some hon. Members are more in favour of this Defence Estimate than are others because they are more in favour of the defence of the country than are others. If that is out of Order, I hope you will tell me so, Mr. Bowles.
Having got over that slight difficulty, which arose from the last speech, and, I hope, having now satisfied you, Mr. Bowles, that I am most anxious to keep in Order—and I hope I shall do nothing else to cause you inconvenience by causing you to have to call attention to the fact that I am out of Order—perhaps I may say a few more words about this Resolution. I hope this will be in Order; I am rather diffident now about saying anything about anything.

The Deputy-Chairman: The noble Lord is going a little too far. He is implying a reflection on the Chair in almost every aside he utters. I hope he will confine himself to the Resolution.

Earl Winterton: I hope I may be permitted to say I am rather diffident about saying anything, because it is obviously a very narrow Resolution. Is that out of Order?

The Deputy-Chairman: The noble Lord has had the benefit of having been here much longer than anybody else and surely he knows better than anyone what is out of Order. He should know how to address the Chair more respectfully. In his comments on whether anything is out of Order or not and the comment that he is diffident about saying anything, he is being slightly unpleasant to the Chair.

Earl Winterton: What I intended to imply, Mr. Bowles, is that this is a comparatively narrow Resolution. May I raise this point of Order? May I say that I am sure you will agree, Mr. Bowles, that it is always in Order to ask whether it would be in Order to pursue a certain line?

The Deputy-Chairman: It is also a hypothetical question, and, therefore, I will decide it when it occurs.

Mr. Carmichael: May I have your advice, Mr. Bowles, as to whether we are discussing a Resolution about housing for the Armed Forces or what is the Resolution because, with all his long experience, the noble Lord has still to begin his speech on married quarters.

The Deputy-Chairman: The noble Lord has himself said that he realises it is a narrow subject and he was then about to confine himself to it.

Earl Winterton: I hope I shall say nothing to offend anyone now that I turn to the Resolution. After all these unfortunate events, I feel quite timid. However, we are very near to the end of this Parliament.

Mr. Harrison: On a point of Order. Do you think, Mr. Bowles, that the comments repeatedly being made by the noble Lord are not casting a definite reflection on the Chair itself?

The Deputy-Chairman: I have already dealt with that matter, within the hearing of the hon. Member. I think the noble Lord had better continue with his speech.

Earl Winterton: As the hon. Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Carmichael) said, it is a question of lack of experience, on whose part I do not know.
The points I want to make are these. In the first place, while we on this side of the House are in agreement with the Government in bringing this Resolution forward, we suggest that it would have been better had it been brought forward earlier. There might be a perfectly proper reply to that and I should not object to its being made. I must ask why housing is in the state in which it is today. I think the Minister of Defence will agree with these considerations which I venture to present—through you, Mr. Bowles—on the subject of the state housing is in at the present time.
I think it is due to three main reasons, as I think my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Petersfield (Sir G. Jeffreys) pointed out in his speech. First, as a result of the war, a great many married quarters which hitherto had been in good order have fallen into disrepair. I always try to be fair however, and I remember that on the last occasion I

spoke, the hon. Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes) was good enough, as I very much appreciated, to pay tribute to the sincerity with which I put forward my views. I quite agree that between the wars there was not enough attention given to this question of housing, for the very reasons mentioned by my hon. and gallant Friend. As was said by the Under-Secretary in his opening speech, it was extremely difficult in those days to get money for housing, because in any Defence Estimate that was the first thing to be cut. [An HON. MEMBER: "Under the Tories "]—From time immemorial. It has been extremely difficult for the Defence Departments to obtain money for such necessary things as housing, because they have been cut out by the Treasury.
There are other reasons which have not been mentioned, and which I think should be mentioned when considering this Resolution, which made the position very much worse than it was before the war. First, I think I am right in saying—and the right hon. Gentleman will correct me if I am wrong—that there are something like 200,000 more men in the Armed Forces than there were. I think there are 100,000 more in the Army.

The Minister of Defence (Mr. A. V. Alexander): More.

Earl Winterton: Secondly, a very much larger proportion, particularly of the Army and I think of the Forces generally, are married. A point constantly made by two of my hon. and gallant Friends is that good housing is a first priority in order to obtain a sufficiency of recruits. From that point of view we are, therefore, extremely pleased that at long last—and I think it is at long last—the Government have accepted the views which we have put forward and I hope, so far as the other side are concerned, accepted them almost unanimously.
There are only three other questions I want to ask. I do not know whether it is in Order to deal with this point at length, but I hope it will be in Order to ask a question on it. As I understand it, these proposals do not apply to the provision of married quarters overseas, as that is to continue to be regarded as a defence commitment rather than as a contribution to the general housing programme. Now, I do not know how far


it is in Order to suggest that the form of the Motion should be altered, but I think I should have the assent of my hon. Friends behind me in saying that it is as important to improve the housing of the men overseas in camps—for example, the Suez camp—as to improve the housing of the men in this country.

Mr. Alexander: May I make that point clear, as it will save time, perhaps. Of course, we are anxious to bring this arrangement on to exactly the same basis of housing as that provided for ordinary citizens in this country, and we propose to provide the housing to that extent by loan. We should not have the arrangements extended—the Treasury will check it—to houses erected in such places that they would form a part of defence works, and might not be of value permanently as part of the housing accommodation of the country. The same view is taken about housing abroad. We shall not cease to go on providing housing abroad, but it will be part of the defence works to be provided and will come out of the annual defence expenditure.

Earl Winterton: That does not really meet the point I was putting, although I am obliged to the Minister of Defence for answering so clearly. This, of course, comes exactly within the category of what I have been saying, that in the past—and this is not a party question, but a point which, I think, will be generally agreed—all the Ministers responsible for the Defence Services have had the greatest difficulty in getting houses provided, so to speak, through the Treasury, because the Treasury has always come along and said, "You will have to cut your Estimates. You have got a lot of things down which are not immediately necessary from the defence point of view. Cut your housing." That is why, in the past, housing has been so shamefully neglected in the Services. If it is not possible for me to suggest altering the Motion, I must say that, personally, I should very much like to see the existing housing position of our men overseas improved. For instance, the housing accommodation in the Suez Canal zone is really calamitous, and there are many other instances, and yet our establishment at Suez is more or less permanent.
The second point I want to make is this. I will put it very shortly, and I

am sorry to keep the Committee so long. I would press for an assurance that the provision of a Ministry of Health certificate, before one can borrow, that the married quarters to be built would be suitable for civilian houses when no longer required for the Forces, should not be interpreted too strictly. I think that is important, because as it seems to me—I may be quite wrong, and I am open to correction by the Minister—the effect of a literal interpretation upon the rules might mean that the extension of married quarters at camps such as Bordon might not rank for borrowing, because they would not be suitable for civilian housing, and because it might be argued that evacuation of barracks would not make it possible to permit civilian tenancy of any such unoccupied Service quarters because they were in a garrison area. I hope that that is a point which the right hon. Gentleman will be able to answer. I think it is a point worth consideration.
My last point is this, and ca va sans dire. I apologise for my pronunciation. I must be very careful in what I say lest I say anything that is out of Order, but I think a French quotation is in Order. I hope ca va sans dire that it used to be in Order. I hope it goes without saying—if I may say so, so that there may be no question that I am out of Order—that in what I am going to say it goes without saying that married quarters will be provided for officers as well as N.C.O.s, because today—if anybody wanted to make the point, which, I am sure, nobody would—the old argument that officers were in a privileged position no longer applies, because today very many of the officers have to go through the ranks, and a number of young officers who are married are married on very small salaries indeed.
Those are the points I wanted to put. May I say, in conclusion, how successful I have been since you, Mr. Diamond, have been in the Chair?

6.15 p.m.

Mr. Swingler: I shall be very brief, and I certainly shall not be bellicose in what I say, because I wish to show more respect for the Chair than the previous speaker the noble Lord the Member for Horsham (Earl Winterton). I hope that the children will not follow the so-called Father of the House—

Earl Winterton: On a point of Order. Is it really in Order for the hon. Gentleman to say I have not shown respect for the Chair? The Deputy-Chairman did not say I had not shown respect for the Chair, but that I should not persist in my points of Order.

The Temporary Chairman (Mr. Diamond): It is the duty of the Chair to draw the attention of any Member to the fact that he is out of Order if and when he is out of Order.

Mr. Swingler: I am not sure, Mr. Diamond, whether you were here when the previous incidents occurred. I think that perhaps some of us on the back benches hear a bit more than is always heard in the Chair, but I certainly think that at the beginning of the speech of the noble Lord we saw a rather disgraceful exhibition—

Earl Winterton: On a point of Order. What on earth has this to do with the Motion? The hon. Member has just said that he saw a disgraceful exhibition. The Deputy-Chairman interrupted me on a matter of Order when I was referring to something that had occurred on the benches opposite which was out of Order—and now the hon. Gentleman is doing exactly the same thing as that which was out of Order.

Mr. Swingler: Further to that point of Order. Am I not entitled to my quota of points of Order as is the noble Lord?

The Temporary Chairman: I should be obliged if the hon. Gentleman would address himself to the Motion before the Committee.

Mr. Swingler: I just want to say that I welcome this Motion for the reason that it is a step in the direction of improving the housing of the families of the Armed Forces, and putting it on the same basis as that of the civil population. I think that is an excellent thing. It is wrong that we should consider the provision of married quarters for the families of the soldiers, sailors and airmen on any other basis of priorities or anything else than that on which we consider the question of housing the families of the country. I understand quite well the concern shown earlier on by my hon. Friend the Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes), but I think he has come in on the wrong Debate or the wrong Motion, and that

what he is really objecting to is not this Motion but something else. I know what he is concerned about.
Nobody could object to this Motion if only because it will be a contribution to the solution of the housing problem of the civil population. There is absolutely no doubt about that. I can vouch for the fact that the progress of the building of married quarters for the Royal Air Force in my own constituency has made some contribution towards solving the housing problem there. The more married quarters are built for the families of the Armed Forces the more, obviously, that will lessen the requirements and the length of the housing lists which confront the local authorities. So any step which puts the building of houses for the Armed Forces on exactly the same basis of need and priority as that of the houses for the civil population is a good thing, because the Armed Forces are composed of citizens in uniform who are entitled to the same services.

6.20 p.m.

Mr. E. L. Gandar Dower: The previous Government business has been disposed of very speedily, so perhaps the Committee can spare a moment or two to examine this Resolution, if only to show universal appreciation of its necessity. The Financial Secretary is adept at persuading the Committee to vote money; he does it charmingly and pleasantly, and he has had a good deal of practice at it under this Government. This, of all the Resolutions he has had to propose, is one with which no section of the Committee can possibly find fault, and it is a very sad thing that on this issue such a childish background should have developed to the Debate. We can be pacifists, like the hon. Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes), without being unpatriotic, and I am certain that no hon. Member receives instructions from any other part of the world.
I welcome this Resolution because I hate conscription, and I feel that this will get us back very largely to voluntary enlistment. If a man entering the Services can be assured of a home for himself, his wife and his family the Services will become much more attractive. The statistics on infidelity and divorce, which we all deplore, arise greatly through the separation of man and wife, and this


Committee is performing a very important task in helping to keep man and wife together.
In Scotland, married quarters are sorely needed, because in the vast country areas those that exist are indeed a very long way from being good. I have the utmost desire to support the Financial Secretary and the Minister of Defence on this Resolution. I am anxious to keep in Order, although with no finesse, but I should like to say that I am sorry that when men are called up to the Services they cannot use their building skill and ability in erecting buildings while serving. That only makes it necessary to regard the call-up of building operatives as a very serious matter indeed.

6.22 p.m.

Mr. Willis: I think all the Committee welcome any measure likely to increase the housing accommodation in this country. Nevertheless, we have a right to ask ourselves, as did my hon. Friend the Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes), whether this Measure will increase the supply of houses, at least in Scotland. We have pressed this matter in this Committee, in the Scottish Grand Committee, and elsewhere for many months, and have been told consistently that it is impossible to get any more houses built in Scotland because there is not the labour available. If that be true, it will seem that this Financial Resolution means nothing, because men are still being taken from the building industry and put into other industries. We want a definite assurance that the houses to be built as a result of passing this Resolution will not be included in the present allocation for Scotland as a whole, but will mean additional housing.
I wish to refer to a topic which has not yet been alluded to during the Debate. I thought the remarks of the noble Lord were rather unfortunate. I noticed that he seemed to be referring to me during the course of those remarks, but having had 16 years in the Forces, I think I can say that I am as willing as anybody to look after my country.

Earl Winterton: I was referring to the attack which had been made on the hon. Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes). Reference to that attack has now been ruled out of Order.

Mr. Willis: I merely wanted to enlighten the noble Lord on that, because he is always well informed on these matters.
The question of married quarters was first raised, in any volume, in 1946. I have received letters from men who had been in the Services a long time, warning me about certain aspects of this matter, and I think this warning ought to be borne in mind. It would be a bad thing if, in carrying out the proposals of this Resolution, we segregated the Armed Forces from the civilian population. I have always felt that the civilian population and the Armed Forces should be mixed to the greatest possible extent. For instance, in a naval port the Service men should live with the civilian population, and not be separated from them. Anybody with experience of married quarters in the Forces knows that frequently there is a considerable amount of unhappiness in married quarters because of the difficult relations between the various ranks and the effect that it has on the attitude of one wife to another.
That was a common feature in the past which made many girls very unhappy. We must avoid that, and we must also avoid creating conditions in which the Service man looks upon himself as being different from a civilian. That is a bad thing, and I should like to know to what extent my right hon. Friend intends to co-operate with local authorities in this respect. I should prefer to have arrangements such as are made in mining areas when miners are moved, so that local authorities are given a special allocation of houses for Service people. I am sure this problem could be dealt with more satisfactorily in many cases. I raise this matter because it is important, and because I know from correspondence I received a. day or two ago that it is a question which is regarded with concern by some members of the Forces at the present moment.

6.28 p.m.

Mr. Carmichael: I do not intervene in this Debate because I am opposed to the building of proper quarters for members of the Armed Forces. It is a right and proper task of any Government to provide the finest accommodation for its employees. Nevertheless, when discussing housing it would be wrong not to intervene, in view


of the very serious housing problem in Scotland. There seems to be a complete misunderstanding about the intervention of my hon. Friend the Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes). I am satisfied that when he was discussing housing for the Armed Forces, it was not on the basis of his pacifist views but largely on the basis of the housing problem in Scotland, and certainly not because of any desire to deny to men in the Armed Forces the very best housing conditions the Government can provide.
We are entitled to ask the Minister of Defence and his Service colleagues what arrangements they have in mind in preparing this housing scheme. Have any arrangements been made with local authorities in Scotland? What proportion of the amount already allocated for civilian housing will have to be handed over to the Government so that it may be taken over by the Armed Forces? I ask that because it is a serious question in some parts of Scotland. In Glasgow there has always been a regiment of one kind or another. Is it the intention of the Government to ask for a portion of the Glasgow Corporation's housing sites to be utilised exclusively for the Armed Forces? That is an important point.
Secondly, if that is to be the case, what arrangements are to be made for building personnel to be directed to that part of the building industry in Scotland? I ask that question because some protests were made today about the very shocking housing conditions for married people in the Armed Forces. I am quite prepared to accept the view that the married quarters are very bad indeed, but I think that it would be wrong in a city like Glasgow, where overcrowding and shocking housing conditions still remain, for building labour to be given over exclusively to providing and looking after married quarters for the Armed Forces.
The question of priority has been raised. I think that the person in the Armed Forces who makes a claim for housing accommodation for his family is entitled to the same consideration as the civilian, but it does not follow that a person who gets married quarters in the Armed Forces is entitled to priority in the city of Glasgow; otherwise he can join the Forces at any minute, be drafted to Glasgow, and immediately get housing

quarters in preference to people who have been applicants for houses for 10 or 12 years. That would cause ill-feeling between the civilian population and the Armed Forces, which would be quite unnecessary.
Has the Minister considered discussing this problem with the Minister of Health and the Secretary of State for Scotland, so that in the planning of priority no attempt is made to continue the delaying process for those who need houses in favour of those who may join the Army at an early date? I have examined the figures, and I think that on a rough calculation something like 6,000 houses may be built in a year for the Armed Forces. That may vary according to the rise and fall of building prices, but I think that 6,000 is not a bad guess. This will involve spending something like £8 million per annum. I want to know what proportion will be allocated to Scotland and what proportion to England.
I also want to know what is to be the type of house; are the married quarters to be closely associated with the civilian population, and is there to be a distinction between the type of houses for officers and those for other ranks. I am prepared to admit that officers are required in the Army because of their greater knowledge of the technique of fighting, but I think that if we are to build up a decent community there should be no distinction in the type of places in which the Army live. I know that may be contrary to the idea of some hon. Members who have distinctive ideas about the Armed Forces, and that idea also prevails in regard to the civilian community. There are people who live in the West End and people who live in the East End. The Government are attempting to abolish that distinction, and I want to know if it is proposed to build two-apartment houses for the private, three-apartment houses for the sergeant, and four-apartment houses, or a special bungalow, for the officer. We are entitled to know that before we spend public money.
Can the Minister and those associated with him use the ability of people who are in the building industry and who are called into the Forces in the provision of these married quarters? I am prepared to accept that every person who joins the Army or any of the Forces must qualify


in fighting efficiency. But what happens today? He goes through his necessary drills and because of certain attainments he may ultimately be directed to the band. Surely, if the Army, Navy and Air Force can find time to direct people to the band—all very necessary in this dull world of ours—a strong case can be made out for sending a person who has been connected with the building industry to help in the building of houses for himself and his friends in the Forces. If we cannot get a situation of that kind developed, we must at some other time,—because it would be out of Order now—ask for a complete review of the method of calling up people to the Armed Forces.
I hope that toy contribution, along with that of my colleagues, although it may be slightly critical, it will not be regarded as an objection to the idea of the Government giving the very best quarters possible to the people who join the Forces. I am sorry that the noble Lord the right hon. Member for Horsham (Earl Winterton) has gone.

Lieut-Colonel Elliot: The right hon. Gentleman is coming back.

Mr. Carmichael: Yes, but he does not know the nice things that I am going to say about him. I hope that he will read them in HANSARD. AS a matter of fact, what I am about to say could be applied universally. I am glad that the Opposition welcome this Resolution and it is no use their telling us that they welcome it because of the dilapidations which took place during the war. One hon. Member told us that many of these houses were built during the period of the Crimean War. I am glad that the noble Lord and some of his hon. Friends in the year 1949 are at least prepared to give this Government credit for doing something worth while during their time of office.

6.38 p.m.

Lieut-Colonel Hamilton: We all heard with appreciation the closing remarks of the hon. Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Carmichael). He perhaps misunderstood the situation slightly when he was making his remarks about accommodation in Glasgow. I have a good deal of acquaintance with accommodation in Glasgow, and I can, of course,

fully support what he said about the bad civilian accommodation there. I think, however, that he must remember that at least the families there do live together, and if there are no family quarters for married soldiers posted to Glasgow, who have to go there whether they like it or not, that means family separation.

Mr. Carmichael: Would the hon. and gallant Gentleman be surprised to know that there are thousands, not hundreds, of families in Glasgow broken up because of their inability to find housing accommodation, who are living with "in-laws" of all kinds?

Lieut.-Colonel Hamilton: That is a strong point. I was not aware that there were a large number of families in that position. Nevertheless I should like to stress the point that the provision of married quarters is not merely a case of seeing that good accommodation is given to married soldiers, but also of seeing that families can live together, because there are many stations where at present that is not possible. I welcome this Resolution very much indeed because I have had a large amount of experience in this matter of the housing of soldiers
I have always been very shocked and disgusted in the past at the scanty consideration given to this subject. The reason is quite clear. I do not think it is the case so much now, but the nation in the past has always tended to grudge any expenditure on its Defence Forces. It has not been possible to cut down on a soldier's pay, because that is laid down in the book, or on his rations, but the one thing on which it has been possible to cut down has been accommodation—a soldier has had to carry on in the existing accommodation, however inadequate and bad it might be. I used to resent that very much when I was responsible for military accommodation, and in no way was it worse than in the case of married quarters.
As has been said, we have married quarters built at every stage in our history. We have heard about quarters that date back to the Crimean War, some of which are shockingly bad compared to modern standards. It has been found impossible to replace these quarters, and reconstruction was very often out of the question for technical reasons. In this connection, I suggest that much could be done by reconstructing derelict buildings


in some of the cities where military units are stationed and turning them into flats. I hope this aspect will be borne in mind in the general improvement to our military married quarters, because I think that an economy could be made in that way. I am thinking particularly of a city like Portsmouth, although in that case, perhaps, everything possible by way of reconstruction has already been done.
In reply to those who complain that this means taking labour away from civilian building, I would point out that we are concerned here with British families who have to be housed somewhere. We are improving the housing accommodation of the nation as a whole just as much in building married quarters for soldiers as in providing accommodation for civilians—it is all part of the nation's housing problem.

Mr. Willis: If the quantity of houses to be built is not increased, surely this means that those people who have been waiting from 12 to 15 years for a house will now have to wait even longer?

Lieut-Colonel Hamilton: It is sometime since I was an active serving soldier, but I know that in my day it was a long time before a married soldier was able to get married quarters. I think that a soldier has to exercise a good deal of patience before he can get married quarters.

Earl Winterton: Is not the answer that in some cases these unfortunate soldiers have been abroad for many years separated from their families? Ought not some priority to be given to them to get housing accommodation?

Lieut.-Colonel Hamilton: That is the point I was trying to make. Married soldiers and officers have to endure separation, in any case, by serving their term at foreign stations. They have to spend a considerable time abroad separated from their families, and facilities ought to be given to them to live with their families when they are serving in this country.

6.45 p.m.

Mr. A. R. W. Low: I am glad that point has been mentioned. We cannot hope, in present circumstances, to get complete equality in housing. I quite realise the point made by the hon. Member for North Edinburgh (Mr.

Willis), who objects to people jumping the queue. We all object to that, but we cannot expect to see complete equality. There is a very strong case to be made out for soldiers, sailors and airmen, and the officers of the three Services, who have to spend so many years serving abroad separated from their families, to be given an opportunity to live with their families when they are serving at home.
Some hon. Members seem to be under the impression that the Forces are depriving the country of a certain amount of building labour. As I understand it, men who are required urgently for building work are being deferred. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] If I am wrong, perhaps I shall be corrected. I also understand that apprentices are deferred.

Mr. Alexander: There is no general exemption under the 1947–48 Act for building operatives. Deferment is a matter for the appropriate authorities to consider in relation to the position of the man concerning his apprenticeship and his trade.

Mr. Emrys Hughes: If a man has finished his apprenticeship, is he not automatically called up?

Mr. Alexander: They are called up from time to time, as they can be fitted in, at the expiration of their apprenticeship.

Mr. Low: The point is, then, that they are eventually called up?

Mr. Alexander: Yes, Sir.

Mr. Low: Many aspersions have been made about accommodation built during the Crimean War. I think it is the fact that the House of Commons was built at that time. A house is not poor just because it was built at that time; it depends on what has been done to it since. Many Members may take pride in living in houses built long before that time.
I hope the right hon. Gentleman will assure us that under this scheme houses will be built more quickly in outlying districts—that is, districts away from military and naval centres—where permanent staff are attached to Auxiliary and Territorial Army units. At present, it is very difficult for these people to find anywhere to live with their families. It must be remembered that this is an important part of the Auxiliary and Territorial Forces scheme. I am fully in agreement


with this Motion, but I submit this one reservation: that all these good intentions are useless unless they achieve their end, and that what we want to see is the houses being built.

6.50 p.m.

Mr. Bing: First of all may I apologise to the Committee sincerely for taking part in this Debate, as I only came into it when it was half way through? In the same sense I ought to apologise because I left the previous Debate before it was finished. In doing so, I am reminded of the story of Lamb who, when he was a civil servant, was reminded how late he arrived for work and replied, "Yes, but think how early I go."
I have had considerable correspondence with the Secretary of State for War in connection with married quarters in Hornchurch and with my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Air in regard to the depot at Warley. One problem, which has not been dealt with so far, is how to get people not only into married quarters, but also out of them. Today, pressure is exerted on time-expired members of the Forces who occupy married quarters, who have nowhere else to go and are compelled to live in them because no other accommodation is available. When considering the provision of married quarters we have to consider the total amount of accommodation available. We cannot make more accommodation available for soldiers if, at the same time, we do not increase the total amount of accommodation throughout the country as a whole.
There is a particular difficulty to which I want to draw the attention of the Committee, and I wish to address an appeal to hon. Members opposite as my own council is Conservative controlled. They have a rule which imposes an eight-year residence limit, which means that no retired professional soldier can ever hope for any accommodation. The same rule applies in many other local authorities, with the result that people have to stay as long as they can in married quarters. One of our constant difficulties in Hornchurch is caused by appeals to people who live in married quarters, who have nowhere else to go and no possibility of qualifying on any housing lists.

Mr. Low: Is it not a fact that most councils which have that rule have an exception that they will treat those who have been in the Regular Forces on a separate basis altogether? That is true of many Conservative controlled councils of which I have knowledge.

Mr. Bing: The hon. Member's progressive influence has been used with those councils with which he is most closely in touch. I would ask him to make an appeal, on behalf of the Armed Forces, to his Conservative friends in Hornchurch so that there might be some hope of retired soldiers getting some accommodation in that area.
We have recently decided that there shall be no further private building. The class of people which corresponds to those who have most private building done, is the officer class. It is much more easy for officers, other things being equal, to get billets in private homes. If there is to be a co-ordinated Service programme of building, I urge the Minister to see that foremost priority should be given to building houses for other ranks. Until the "other rank" problem is solved, the officer problem should be left until later, in the same way that private building for wealthier people is being left at the moment.

6.54 p.m.

Major Legge-Bourke: I regret to have to intervene, but I must say something about the closing remarks of the hon. Member for Hornchurch (Mr. Bing). I beg the Minister to realise that if he wants to get the Regular Forces working properly, he must take good care of officers as well as other ranks. I am not suggesting that officers should have priority over other ranks where their cases are equal, but I do say that officers should have a fair chance of having their cases considered if they are deserving.
Can the right hon. Gentleman tell us what will be the number of the houses built under this proposal? Although I welcome the Motion, I think there is great danger of our raising false hopes. I hope he will tell us whether the Government will build more houses than have been built for the Forces to date. If there is no prospect of that, I hope he will say so, because the Forces will be looking at this proposal and the legislation which will follow it with considerable


interest. They will expect great things of it, and it is up to the right hon. Gentleman to tell them what they ought to expect. I hope we shall be told what is the right hon. Gentleman's attitude to the suggestion which has been made about bringing in local authorities.
I should like to support the plea made on behalf of those coming out of the Armed Forces. If something can be done in the forthcoming legislation to ensure that there is sufficient accommodation for those coming into the civilian field after long service in the Forces, I hope the right hon. Gentleman will not fail to do it. Perhaps that is not strictly within the ambit of this Motion; nevertheless, I take the opportunity of asking the Government to try to rectify the grievous situation of men who have served their country for many years and who find, at the end of their service, that they have nowhere to live.

6.58 p.m.

The Minister of Defence (Mr. A. V. Alexander): I apologise to the Committee for not being here at the beginning of the Debate to introduce the discussion on the Motion. It was only urgent Government business that did not allow me to be here on time, although I did not expect the Debate to start as early as 5.20 p.m. However, I am indebted to my right hon. Friend the Financial Secretary for having expounded the basic financial provisions of the scheme which will be put into legislative form if the Committee pass the Motion today.
On the whole, I have no great reason to complain of the reception which Members on both sides have given to the Motion. The Service Departments have been spurred to find the best possible solution of the housing difficulties of the Fighting Services largely by expressions of opinion from Members on both sides of the House. I need quote only two such expressions, made in March last. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Horsham (Earl Winterton) said:
… the question of the housing of troops and officers and N.C.Os. has been neglected not by one Government, not by a Socialist or a Tory Government, but literally for hundreds of years. I am trying to put this matter on a non-party basis, and I say that there is no reason why we should not try to tackle it today.

I entirely accept that. The same day my right hon. Friend the Member for Basset-law (Mr. Bellenger) said:
I think that in this country we ought to claim from the Minister of Health a certain proportion of houses for the Services, and particularly for the Army. After all, they are houses in England, and what does it matter whether they are occupied by civilians or soldiers and their families? They are all part of the community."—[OFFICIAL REPORT. 10th March, 1949; Vol. 462, c. 1437–1523.]

Earl Winterton: As the right hon. Gentleman has referred to me, perhaps he will remember that I made the same remark that he has recalled on more than one occasion.

Mr. Alexander: I have not been dissatisfied with the general reception of this Resolution. I wanted to remind the Committee that we have been very anxious to do what we now propose and which has been approved by Members on both sides. What is the problem? It is, first, that our forces are somewhat larger than they were before the war; secondly, as was said by the noble Lord, there is in the present make-up of the Forces and likely to be in the future, a rather higher percentage of men entitled to married quarters in the Services; and, thirdly, we have not in the past, extending over the last 50 or 60 years, made sufficient provision for the very minimum of accommodation for the married members of the Services.
Broadly speaking, the present situation is that we have need for about 59,000 to 60,000 married quarters for the three Services in this country. We have at the present time only about 29,000 houses, of which those of a permanent character actually provided since the war number about 3,000. The other 26,000 may be described as being of all kinds and conditions. Some of them are fairly decent houses, which were erected in the more modern camps before the war, especially by the Royal Air Force. Some of them are very unsatisfactory and some are temporary married quarters, which have been improvised out of this, that or the other relic or hutment.
We still have a need for 30,000 permanent houses in this country. From the pace at which we have been going in the' last two or three years, during which we have provided 3,000 houses for the services, it can be seen that it is going to be


at least 10 years or a longer period before we get to our minimum requirements for married quarters unless something is done to speed it up. Then comes the question, how is it to be done? My hon. Friend the Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes) charges me with being the most profligate Minister in the Government. He says I am trying to work a quick one or to work a trick upon the Committee by turning this kind of expenditure into loan form, instead of making it annual expenditure. What sort of progress would be made in civil housing if local authorities had to provide houses out of current revenue? Is it reasonable to expect the Fighting Services to make the same kind of progress in their requirements, which are for human beings, too, if they are to be confined to a practice of paying for the married quarters each year out of revenue?
All we are asking the Committee to give us in this Resolution is authority to finance by loan suitable houses for the Services in this country of a type which, if ever they are not required for military service, will be available for use by the civilian community. This is covered by loan expenditure instead of annual capital expenditure.

Mr. Gallacher: (Fife, West) rose —

Mr. Alexander: I do not think that the hon. Member has been here very long.

Mr. Gallacher: I have been here quite a time. Is it not a case that in any district where there are Service men, there is sufficient housing accommodation at the present time if a little reconstruction is carried out, provided the Service people are rationed in the same way as working class people are rationed in their accommodation?

Mr. Alexander: I do not think that the hon. Member has studied the question for more than a few moments if that is the view of the general situation which he holds.
Having given the Committee a general picture, I imagine hon. Members are entitled to have some idea of how quickly we can progress. I should like to progress much more quickly than I am afraid we are going to do, but the Committee must remember that the Government have had to make a general cut in

the capital investment programme, which affects building. We cannot claim greater priority for the Services nor expect special treatment compared with any other section. Therefore, what we aim to do in future is to handle the whole problem by joint consultation with the Service Ministers, the Minister of Health and the Secretary of State for Scotland. As my hon. Friends from Scotland have put this specific point more than anybody else, I should like to inform them that we have complete co-operation from the Minister of Health in England and Wales and the Secretary of State for Scotland in what we are proposing to do tonight.
The hon. and gallant Member for the Isle of Ely (Major Legge-Bourke) is entitled to an answer to his question. I should say that we propose to start about 6,500 married quarters for the Services in the year 1950–51. We hope thereafter, because of the new provisions, to complete an average over the next five years of about 5,000 married quarters in this country.

Earl Winterton: For all the Services?

Mr. Alexander: Yes. What we want to do is to reach the target of married quarters' requirements in about half the period likely in any other circumstances.

Major Legge-Bourke: While thanking the right hon. Gentleman for answering my question, I wonder whether he would slightly enlarge upon it, and tell us if any houses are going to be built within the respective Service Estimates, because as I understand this proposal it is only for building houses outside defence or actual barrack areas. Is there going to be any building inside defence or barrack areas in addition to what he has given?

Mr. Alexander: I indicated earlier that this scheme is subject to the condition that the houses are of a kind and in a position which would make them available to the civilian population if at any time we did not require them for defence purposes. In very outlying stations where houses may need to be provided, which would clearly have to be regarded as part of the regular defence works, they would not be likely to be of value to the civilian authority, and we should be content to carry them on the annual capital expenditure account. I have included such houses in the general figures which I have put forward.

Mr. Molson: If there are these additional houses in defence areas will they be additional to the 6,500 which are to be started this year and the average of 5,000 a year after that? If they are houses of that kind will they have to be taken from the total number?

Mr. Alexander: It is almost impossible at this stage to be exact upon that. Many of these schemes will have to be considered by each of the Service Ministers concerned to see what he is going to do in particular cases. After all, he is responsible in each case for administration and thus for housing policies of this kind. I would warn the Committee that the building of Service houses, as is the case with local authority houses, has got to be considered in the light of the general labour and material provision available for the whole of the country. It will be our endeavour to keep to the figures I have mentioned, and, if it is possible to add to the houses which are being built, it will be done. I cannot give a specific promise tonight, but it will be a matter for each of the Service Ministers.

Earl Winterton: I should like to put a point quite shortly to the right hon. Gentleman. We want to be very clear about it and I am very glad that one of my hon. Friends has raised it. As I understand the last sentence of the right hon. Gentleman, it would seem that where there are isolated places and the housing would not come under the Bill and would therefore not be available to civilian use, the chances of getting such houses built would be very much less than is the case today. It is a very important point.

Mr. Alexander: indicated dissent.

Earl Winterton: I understood the right hon. Gentleman to say that the overall amount would be governed by this Estimate.

Mr. Alexander: The houses would be much more likely to be built, because under this Resolution we should not have to find the full amount of capital expenditure for housing within our Defence Vote. Therefore, there would not be that special deterrent, the "usual sort of thing "of which the noble Lord complained, and which has meant in the

past that the Works Vote and the Housing Vote was easy to cut when one had to reduce a Service Estimate.

Mr. Swingler: I am not quite clear yet upon this point. When the Minister of Health announces a housing programme for the country, of say, 200,000 houses, will the 5,000 houses for the Services be a part of that 200,000? Will the total be 205,000 for the year, or only 195,000 for the civilian population and 5,000 for the Services? I am not clear whether the plan of married quarters for the Services is additional to the programme announced by the Minister of Health or not.

Mr. Alexander: While we should keep always in the forefront the need for constant consultation about housing with the Minister of Health and the Secretary of State for Scotland, any overall plan that they may announce for house building in this country will include what is being done under this Resolution for the Services. It would be inclusive. There is nothing terrifying about that. My hon. Friends will see that we can only move within the maximum available fund of capital, materials and labour.

Mr. Carmichael: On this matter of labour, I understand that because of certain restrictions in trade unions we cannot use building trade labour when the men are in the Army. In other words, people who are in the building industry and are called up, cannot be directed to building after they have had their training. If this is the case, surely it is time that Ministers responsible for housing took steps to overcome the difficulty so that labour is not wasted away on other things than what it can do best.

Mr. Alexander: I hope that the hon. Member will excuse me for saying that I think he is making rather too much of that sort of problem. The call-up to which he refers applies only to a limited section of the community at a certain age and for a certain period. It is absolutely essential, if we are to satisfy the universality principle in National Service that they should be called up. When they are with the Colours they must be given their actual military training, but an attempt is made at all times in the Services to give opportunities for the kind of work to which men are best suited, having regard


to what they have done or intend to do when they return to civil life. Beyond that answer I could not go.
I have been asked a number of questions tonight and I am not sure whether I can answer them all. I will do my best. My hon. Friend the Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes) wants to know whether I am an enemy or an ally in regard to the general provision of houses. I have always been an ally of the provision of housing all my long political life, which has been just as long a political life as that of my hon. Friend. All that I am claiming is that the houses that we intend to provide for the men who are serving their country in this form of service, and for their wives, shall be just as good, and the men shall be at least as well treated, as in the case of those who are serving their country in the mines and fields, for whom we have already given special priorities in our general housing provision. My hon. Friend wanted me to answer a question about the size of the houses, while the hon. Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Carmichael) raised the same point. It is essential, from the point of view of their responsibility for administration that the Service Ministers should be answerable to the House of Commons about the size of these houses.
I want to be frank with my hon. Friend the Member for Hornchurch (Mr. Bing) and others, having regard to things which have been said on both sides of the House about the position of officers in regard to their pay and allowances. Because of the high prices they have been forced to pay for accommodation in the last three or four years, it would be quite wrong if we did not make adequate provision for officers in the Services, especially for those who are among the lowest paid, many of whom have growing families to keep. The Service Ministers, following the general policy, will use their judgment about the allocation between officers and other ranks in regard to houses, and it will be for the House of Commons in Committee on the Service Estimates to express views and make any criticisms on the Service Estimates as submitted.
A point was made, I think by my hon. Friend the Member for North Edinburgh (Mr. Willis), about the desirability that Service people who are on shore from the

Navy for the time being, and who are allocated to a district by the other two Services, should live as far as possible in general accommodation with other civilians. On the other hand, one of my other Scottish hon. Friends was most anxious to know whether or not we were going to take any sites, in our general housing provision, from those all ready allocated to or taken up by local authorities. We would like to have as much contact between the married families of the Services and their civilian neighbours as possible. We do not propose however in any way to take away or to interfere with sites which have been allocated to local authorities and approved and licensed under the various schemes approved by the Ministry of Health or the Scottish Department of Health.
I say this. There will be the fullest consultation with the local authority in every local area where houses are built for the Services. It is true that, as this is a Crown scheme, it is not subject to the local bylaws, but there will be such consultation that it can be guaranteed that the houses will never contravene the general idea of the bylaws.

Mr. Carmichael: Then there will be no compulsory power to take possession of land such as the Services had during the war, in such a case as Bellahouston Park? They will not walk into an area and say, "We want this for married quarters "?

Mr. Alexander: If my hon. Friend is thinking that the Secretary of State for Air, who is listening to this Debate, would go and ask for a piece of Bellahouston Park in order to make a housing scheme, I can assure him that the Minister would never dream of doing such a thing without prior consultation with the local authority. I am quite sure that my right hon. Friend and the other Service Ministers would be so concerned about the general amenities of the people that they would not make any such proposition. It may well be that in some of the outlying districts where a community was beginning to grow up round a camp, as was referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Mr. Swingler), we should have to requisition or purchase land, but it would not be for interfering with the existing amenities of the people or the local authorities.

Mr. Carmichael: I do not want it to go out that my right hon. Friend would ever dream of taking Bellahouston Park and build houses on it, because there would be an outcry at once. The only point I am making is that the park was taken by compulsory powers. If it is desired to build houses in Glasgow the Services will have the greatest possible co-operation of the local authority, but in the event of a breakdown in the negotiations, will my right hon. Friend or the Service Ministers have power subsequently to say that, as the negotiations have failed, they will take possession of the land? That is the kind of thing I wish to avoid.

Mr. Alexander: If after long and proper negotiation something which the Crown required was being quite unreasonably withheld from one of the Services of the Crown, we should require to exercise compulsory powers, but I am sure that such powers in respect of the provision of housing would never be injuriously or wrongfully used. I am sure that I can give that assurance.
I believe I have covered practically all the points put to me in the Debate. I can only conclude by saying that I have welcomed very much the majority of the comments which have been made and I have also welcomed the criticism which has been made. The points which have been made will be carefully watched by my Service colleagues in the administration of the scheme.

Commander Maitland: Before the right hon. Gentleman sits down, I should like to ask him a question. I apologise for not having been here the whole time. It is important to ask him this question. About three weeks ago the Civil Lord, in answer to a Question, laid it down as Admiralty policy that it was not the policy of His Majesty's Government to build married quarters for naval ratings in the home ports. It seems to me that the circumstances have been altered by these proposals. Will the Minister of Defence tell us whether it is now proposed to treat the matter on a wider basis and to reconsider that decision by the Government?

Mr. Alexander: The requirements of the Navy under this scheme will be about 3,200 houses. How that is to be administered locally is entirely the

responsibility of the First Lord or his representative in the House under the terms of the White Paper. As I have given the information that the Navy will require about 3,200 houses, the hon. and gallant Gentleman will be entitled to ask the First Lord or his representative exactly where they will provide them.

7.24 p.m.

Mr. Gallacher: When I asked a question, the Minister commented that I had not been present during the whole of the discussion. Like many other hon. Members, I have other commitments, and I had to see a deputation. However, I have heard sufficient to realise that this problem is not sufficiently understood by the Minister. The Minister says that he wants Service men who are defending the country to get equal treatment with those who are defending the country in the mines, in the engineering shops and so on. All right, but is the Minister aware that a young married civilian couple cannot get a house because housing is rationed for the workers? That is a very important fact. The Minister says that he has powers to take over land compulsorily if there is any hitch after much discussion with the local authorities.
Thousands upon thousands of workers are defending the country in the mines and in the engineering shops and they are living in conditions which are simply appalling, and if we had squads of men razing thousands of these houses to the ground, we should be doing a service to the country and to the people. In any district where soldiers are stationed and married soldiers are looking for quarters, sufficient housing accommodation could be found if the Minister cared to use his powers. What has the Minister so say to the fact that we may have a soldier, his wife and his children unable to get accommodation and yet in the vicinity we may have a couple occupying a house of 10, 15 or 20 rooms? If the workers who are defending the country in the mines and the engineering shops are rationed for housing—married couples without children cannot get houses because they are rationed on the basis of so many adults for three, four, or five rooms—

The Deputy-Chairman: The Resolution is confined to married quarters for Service personnel.

Mr. Gallacher: I am talking about married quarters. I guarantee to go to Portsmouth with the Minister and show him where, with the least reconstruction and with proper rationing of housing, there is an abundance of accommodation for every Service family. I will take him to Glasgow, Edinburgh or any of these places and show him that, with proper rationing of housing accommodation, with the least bit of reconstruction and without taking labour away from the building of houses for workers, there is—

Earl Winterton: On a point of Order, Mr. Bowles. I understood your Rulings when I and others were speaking were to the effect that we were concerned with houses for married couples in the Forces. How can the rationing of accommodation for the civilian population, to which the hon. Member for West Fife (Mr. Gallacher) is referring, have anything to do with the Resolution?

The Deputy-Chairman: I have been considering it very carefully and I think that the hon. Member for West Fife is in Order. The Resolution——

Mr. Gallacher: rose —

The Deputy-Chairman: Order—refers to:
The provision of approved housing accommodation in Great Britain for married persons.
I gather that what the hon. Member is arguing is that there are houses which can be requisitioned by the Minister of Defence in order to house married couples in the Services.

Mr. Gallacher: The Minister himself said that he wants the men in the Services to get treatment as desirable as that given to the men who are serving the country in the mines and in the engineering shops. I agree with that. Married men in the Services should be able to get married quarters with the least possible delay so that when they are at home they can live with their wives and children. Everyone agrees with that, but the important thing is that in this country thousands upon thousands of men who are serving their country in the pits and in the engineering shops cannot get houses.

The Deputy-Chairman: We are not concerned with men serving in the pits or in agriculture, but purely and simply with men serving in the Forces. In my opinion the hon. Member for West Fife is in Order when he says that there is vacant accommodation or partially bombed accommodation which can with the use of a little labour be converted into housing for the troops and their wives, but he must not talk too much about the mines.

Mr. Gallacher: I wanted the Minister to make sure that the men for whom he is responsible would get accommodation more rapidly than those to whom he referred, who are defending the country in civilian jobs. The Minister can get that accommodation. If he has any doubts about it, I am prepared to put myself at his service and locate the necessary accommodation if he is prepared to use the great powers which he has. Without in any way disturbing the labour which is engaged in building houses for the others to whom he has referred, the Minister can in the shortest possible time get accommodation for every married couple in the Services.

7.30 p.m.

Mr. Alexander: I should be prepared to accept help or advice from any quarter of the Committee in order to get a development of our housing provisions for the Armed Forces. However, the hon. Member for West Fife (Mr. Gallacher) does not seem to realise that the Service authorities have been grappling with this problem for four years, and in the course of those years have actually made a number of conversions of the kind he is talking about. Service families are entitled to be given exactly the same kind of priority, in types of housing as well as location, as we have been prepared to give to the miners, the agricultural workers and the like. We are only asking for the same treatment and we must insist upon it.

7.31 p.m.

Earl Winterton: The Ruling which you have just given, Mr. Bowles, I do not dispute, and I am sorry if I was in conflict with the Chair earlier. It raises a point of immense importance, however. Indeed, the accuracy of your Ruling has been shown by what the right hon. Gentleman has just said. I did not


realise—and it was no doubt ignorant of me—that the Government already possess power to requisition housing. That in no way alters the value of this provision, but in view of that I shall be expressing the views of my hon. Friends who are interested in these matters if, in view of the deplorable shortage of housing for married members of the Forces, I raise this point: has any effort been made by the right hon. Gentleman to requisition houses from the local authorities? If he possesses that power, when a local authority puts up houses why should not members of the Forces have priority? I think they should have it. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will be able to tell us that some efforts have been made, but if he cannot answer I shall raise this on the Second Reading of the Bill.

Mr. Alexander: That would not be my proposal at any time. Where local authorities have long waiting lists of civilians, and have their civilian schemes approved, it certainly would not be right politically to try to exercise requisitioning powers against them on behalf of the Services. We are standing up to the problem ourselves, negotiating with the Minister of Health and with the Secretary of State for Scotland for a proper position within the general provision of houses in the country. Beyond that I do not think we ought to go.

Mr. Low: I was trying to ask the right hon. Gentleman one question at the end of his speech in regard to a point on which I may have misunderstood him. I thought I heard the right hon. Gentleman say that, in reviewing the programme for the building of married quarters for the Defence Forces over the next five years, certain cuts have had to be made in view of the economic situation. That rather shocked me because I remember the Chancellor of the Exchequer saying:
… No cuts are being made in the programmes for the building of married quarters."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 26th October, 1949; Vol. 468, c. 1348.]
From that statement I thought no cuts were being made in the building of these married quarters and that this scheme had been fixed for some time.

Mr. Alexander: Perhaps I was not as clear as I should have been. What I intended to convey was that, because of

the general reduction of the capital investment programme, there must be a ceiling limit upon the provision made in respect of housing in general.

Mr. Low: The right hon. Gentleman did not mean to contradict that or to amend anything?

Mr. Alexander: No.

Resolved:

That it is expedient—

(a) to authorise the Treasury, during the five years ending on the thirty-first day of March, nineteen hundred and fifty-five, to issue out of the Consolidated Fund sums not exceeding in the aggregate forty million pounds, to be applied as appropriations in aid of moneys provided by Parliament for those years for the provision of approved housing accommodation in Great Britain for married persons serving in, or employed in connection with, the armed forces of the Crown, being accommodation the cost of the provision of which would otherwise fall to be defrayed out of moneys provided by Parliament for the defence services:

Provided that the amount so issued for any year to defray Navy, Army or Air Force expenditure in respect of the provision of approved housing accommodation in Great Britain for persons serving in, or employed in connection with, the Royal Navy or Royal Marines, the Army or the Air Force, as the case may be, shall not at any date exceed the aggregate of the amounts proposed to be so issued to defray that expenditure by the estimates upon which this House has, before that date, resolved to grant sums to His Majesty to defray that expenditure for that year;

(b) to authorise the Treasury, for the purpose of providing sums (or any part of sums) to be issued as mentioned in the foregoing paragraph, or of providing for the replacement of all or any part of sums so issued, to raise money in any manner in which they are authorised to raise money under the National Loans Act, 1939, and to provide that any securities created and issued accordingly shall be deemed for all purposes to have been created and issued under that Act;

(c) to provide for the repayment to the Exchequer, out of moneys provided by Parliament for the defence services, of the sums issued as aforesaid, together with interest thereon;

(d) to provide for the issue out of the Consolidated Fund of sums paid into the Exchequer under the last foregoing paragraph and the application of sums so issued in redemption or repayment of debt, or, in so far as they represent interest, in payment of interest otherwise payable out of the permanent annual charge for the National Debt.

For the purpose of this Resolution the expression "approved" means approved by the


Treasury, and the expression "the defence services" means the Navy, Army and Air services.

Resolution to be reported Tomorrow.

Committee to sit again Tomorrow.

Orders of the Day — PRIVILEGES

Mr. Ede and the Solicitor-General discharged from the Committee of Privileges, and the Attorney-General and Mr. Herbert Morrison added.—[Mr. R. Adams.]

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Mr. R. Adams.]

Orders of the Day — WAR DEBTS

7.35 p.m.

Mr. Harold Davies: I am glad that I have this opportunity of raising on a broad basis the issue of war debts and, in the time available, am able to look at a specific section of them, namely, the sterling balances. I hope thereby to elicit a little more information from the Minister than was given to the hon. and gallant Member for New Forest and Christ-church (Colonel Crosthwaite-Eyre) when he raised this issue on 15th November. Whether the hon. and gallant Member agrees with my point of view or not is another matter, but the entire House is agreed that here is a basic problem in British economy and one towards which we should now be looking and organising our forces in order to try to find an answer.
By way of general introduction, I would point out that no civilisation can bear for ever such a burden of debt per head as is represented by war debt or National Debt. From figures which I have gathered from the Library, I find that the deadweight of National Debt per head of population in March, 1914, was about £14 2s. By March, 1946, the deadweight per head of the National Debt was £500 4s. Thus we have found a method of passing the burdens of wars past, present and future on to the as yet unborn. If every war were paid for on the nail, wars would never be fought. We live in a world of realities and those of us who are practical politicians know that the art of politics is not what you want but what you can get. In the last two wars, had the legislators of this

country had the courage, we should have imposed a rough equalisation of income on every citizen when we had to meet the forces of aggression from outside. Had that principle been applied we should not have found profiteers in war or so many people anxious for war to last a little longer. However, those are general points which in this short Debate I shall not be able to develop.
I believe that one section of the war debts we must try to deal with is represented by the sterling balances, and this question has been raised many times by the hon. and gallant Member for New Forest and Christchurch. As far as I am concerned, the issue is not one of repudiation but of the equalisation of the burden. I believe also that the sterling balances could be made an asset if we tackled the problem properly. If, for instance, there were a firm agreement of goods for goods, then the "bears" now in the market would be defeated. At the time of the Bretton Woods agreement, what did the authorities say when they talked of scaling down? We find that the Government of the United Kingdom, according to the Financial Secretary at that time,
intends to make an agreement with the countries concerned for an early settlement.
The principle of joint contributory responsibility applies to the current defence of Western Union. The principle of joint contributory responsibility should have applied to the last war. In fact, the Second World War was in a way a world-wide enterprise against Fascism, and paying for that war is not merely a British problem but a world problem.
I regretted very much, in a recent Debate in the House, hearing an hon. Member opposite referring to this country as a nation of spongers. That is entirely wrong, because if we analyse what Britain has had coming in and what we have given out since 1st January, 1946, we arrive at a completely different conclusion. Since the war Britain has received in total, by means of the American and Canadian Loans and Marshall Aid, a gross sum of £1,500 million in dollars. Since that date also Britain has spent £1,013 in dollars on overseas expenditure, including U.N.R.R.A., all other relief and rehabilitation, and the cost of administering Germany, as well as our heavy overseas military commitments. Since January, 1946, there has been also a legal export—or there was until a month ago


—of capital from this country to the sterling area of £450 million. We have also released £430 million worth of sterling balances, making, therefore, a total of £880 million. This means that this amount of capital and exports has been transferred from this country without any return. We see, therefore, that in total Britain has provided to other countries aid in excess of her dollar aid by £400 million.
If we take a different set of figures and analyse them, comparing the British balance of imports and exports to and from the United States with the same balance of the sterling area excluding Britain, we arrive at approximately the same conclusion. That is a state of affairs which cannot possibly continue. I reiterate, therefore, that paying for the last World War is a problem not merely for the British people, but for the entire world. If revolutionary situations are to be prevented from arising in the world, it is of paramount importance that all nations regard this problem as a world problem.
In 1945 Lord Keynes, with skill and patience, tried to negotiate in Washington on this issue of war debts, and the Foreign Secretary, on 13th December, 1945, indicated to the House that the whole struggle then was to get Lend-Lease written off retrospectively. I contend that the Marshall Plan and the "little" Marshall Plan have shown already that the entire approach to the problem has altered. That is indicated also, I believe, by Mr. Truman's Fourth Point.
I believe that in Washington this month there will be a discussion in which this problem of British war debts, sterling balances or whatever they are called, will be considered. We know that no satisfactory solution has been found to this problem, and we already have a first-class economic argument which puts forward the point of view which I am now trying to expound. If hon. Members will read the book by Professor Hancock and Miss Gowing, which was published by His Majesty's Stationery Office and is to be found in our Library, they will see on page 369 a chart showing war expenditure as a percentage of national income. The interesting thing about that chart in this excellent book is that it is not an English, but an American, chart. It was presented to Congress by President Truman as part

of his 20th Report on Lend-Lease in August, 1945. Page 369 of this book contains also this quotation:
To the extent that the cost of each nation's contribution to the war can be measured in financial terms, probably the best measurement is the proportion of its national income which each of the United Nations is devoting to the war.
Here Mr. Truman merely represented the recommendation of his famous predecessor, President Roosevelt, who in June, 1942, in his 5th Lend-Lease Report, said:
All the United Nations are seeking maximum conversion to war production in the light of their special resources. If each country devotes roughly the same fraction of its national production to the war, then the financial burden of the war is distributed equally among the United Nations in accordance with their ability to pay.
That is a wise democratic policy in so far as the last World War was a world public enterprise against the spread of Fascism. It would mean that each citizen of the Allies would pay in accordance with his ability to pay—that is, in reality with income—which is a democratic principle.
The Truman-Roosevelt doctrine leaves out for Britain the effect of bombing and of shipping losses. If we take the Truman chart on page 369 of Professor Hancock's book and apply these percentages to actual national income and war expenditure, there is an over-payment by Britain of £6,000 million and a short-fall in the case of the United States by £7,500 million. That is not to say that America is not a great and generous nation or that the American citizen did not pull his weight in the last war. I do not want to cast any aspersions on any nation. I merely want to try to look at this question from the point of view of sterling balances in relation to the economic crisis in the world—it is not only a British crisis, but a world crisis—realising that no other country has faced the storm of the economic crisis so squarely, or has managed to steer so steady a course through those seas, as this country. One point we ought to notice is that on 28th February, 1948, the "Statist" dealt with these problems and showed that the figures I have mentioned could be approximately doubled if all the details were included.
I admit that there are many causes besides war finance and war debt which add to Britain's dollar and other diffi-


culties and I believe I would be in Order in introducing an example of one or two. We have the decline in dollar earnings and the typical example of what I call "hot" money. Only a few days ago I asked a Question of the Colonial Secretary about the movement of coffee from Kenya to Italy. There is a lot of commodity-shunting going on in the world at the moment, which is undermining the £, undermining the sterling area and placing Britain in a difficult economic position. It was interesting to see that in December, 1948, the amount of coffee moving from Kenya to Italy was only 100 cwt. In June, 1949, it was nil, but in July it was 261 cwt. and in October—last month—it reached the peak point of 923 cwt.
The "Financial Times" has taken the trouble to explain to financiers how they can dodge the exchanges. It had two excellent articles, one on 16th November and the other on 17th November, 1949, dealing with this problem of markets for cheap sterling. Referring to Italy in the second article, it said:
The opening reference to 'commodity shunting' is in connection with the marrying-off of different descriptions of sterling, involving usually a hard currency transaction at some stage. Multiple currency practices"—
They can be many, because there are more than 100 quotations of the £ in the world at present—
… facilitate these deals by creating divergent cross-rates.
Here is the bit in which I am interested:
But, in the case of Italy, which was allowed to return to the transferable account area on condition that she established the official dollar-sterling cross-rate, Italian assurances of the strict observance of Bank of England regulations have not availed very much.
I need not go on quoting. That was the reason why I put down the Question about Kenyan coffee, because all over the world this movement of "hot" money is undermining the position of the £. If it is thought out by any group of industrialists or merchants, it is one of the most unpatriotic acts in which any section of the City, or elsewhere, could participate at present.

Colonel Crosthwaite-Eyre: Has the hon. Member any evidence that any "hot" money is used by anyone in the City for the purposes to which he has referred?

Mr. Davies: I qualified it; I said "If." Later on I will come a bit nearer the bone. There is something else we must realise about these unrequited exports. I have not the time to work out the involved economic analysis, but does not the issue of unrequited exports increase the inflationary tendency in the country? I think it does. We are continually sending them to discharge sterling war debts. "The Times" of 21st August, 1945, put the matter in a nutshell:
The possible need for transitional financial assistance from the United States will arise in large measure from the arbitrary and accidental way in which the financial burdens of the common war effort came to be distributed and the case is strong for some readjustment recognising the principle of ' equality of sacrifice ' laid down by Mr. Roosevelt and permitting the change-over from war to peace to be accompanied with the fewest restrictive practices and the highest commercial freedom and productive efficiency.
This naturally brings me to point 13 of the recent Washington communiqué dealing with sterling balances. The most encouraging passage in the entire communiqué was—or was it?—I put that qualification in, that the balances were frankly described as the result of payments made by Great Britain "in the common war effort." There is a frank and generous recognition of that on the part of the United States of America. Congressman Christian Herter came to Europe and made the famous Marshall Report, which he drew up after his Committee's tour of Europe, on 1st February, 1948. Congressman Herter's report confirmed this general thesis of mine. In his report dealing with England's trouble, Congressman Herter called for a war debt conference and paid a remarkable tribute to Britain, a much greater tribute than we have had paid by hon. Members opposite. Four brief passages of the Herter Committee's report are very relevant. The report says:
For well over a century and until the recent war, the pound sterling was the monetary unit for carrying on a substantial part of the world's multilateral commerce. This activity has languished since the war because of the inconvertibility of the pound sterling and attempts to revive it by use of the dollar, however flattering, have been unsuccessful. The dollar can probably never take the place of the pound sterling in world trade because the United States may never be an importer to the same relative extent and on as world-wide a basis as the United Kingdom.
He then pointed out that the sterling balances hung like a millstone round the


neck of the British economy and he called right away for a distribution of the burden and suggested that the United States must assist in calling a conference and participating in the solution, perhaps by providing the means for converting some of the sterling balances into dollars as an inducement to Britain's creditors to make substantial reductions. Even the Herter Committee recognised that the dollar could never quite take the place of the £ sterling because of the unique position of the sterling area, and of Britain in particular, in world economy.
Have we used our bargaining power enough when discussing these sterling balances? The very fact that we import four-fifths of the world's butter, half the world's egg production, half the world's cheese and half the world's tea—I could give other examples—show that we are in a strong position. Have we used that position as a buyer in world affairs to force the world to face the public enterprise of the Second World War against Fascism and to try to get equalisation of the burden amongst the ex-belligerent countries of the world? I think not.
There may be some danger in Herter's suggestion about the dollar credits, because I believe that if we allowed our sterling balances to move over completely into the dollar area and be credited by dollars, there would be a demoralisation of the pound and we should also lose future markets. I do not think we should do that. I believe that another approach to this problem can be made, and I believe that our Government, whatever may be said elsewhere, have a strong bargaining power which they have not yet been prepared to use at the international conference tables of the world.
I have two other points to make and then I will leave the matter to other hon. Members to take up. Walter Lippman, in a famous article on "Liquidating the British Crisis," suggested that the United States should directly discharge these war debts to countries such as India. In my view a war debt settlement is needed between America, the Commonwealth and Britain to reach an agreement to enable sterling to be freely convertible for current transactions. There may be a danger in the Lippman suggestion. I ask the Economic Secretary whether he considers that this solution would be a selling out of the future of our heavy capital industries in those areas? Does he believe that

if we did this it would mean that we should lose markets in areas which hitherto naturally linked up with the sterling area?
Finally, I believe that a co-ordination of economic policy within the Commonwealth is needed. On this issue of sterling balances, I do not think that up to now we have had that co-ordination. I wonder whether the Government and the country as a whole fully realise the absolute or paramount importance of this problem to the economy of Britain? I should therefore like the Economic Secretary to tell the House, if he can, in what kind of mood the Government hope to go into the Washington conference to discuss this problem of the sterling balances, and whether he realises that we have come to the end of continuous appeals to the mass of the people in Britain. We have been moving in a circle; we have been saying to the people of Britain of all classes, "Work harder, consume less, produce more, and we shall solve the problem." Then to our amazement we find that there are forces outside this House of Commons and outside this Government that cannot be controlled—I have given examples of some of them—and once again we are confronted with a crisis which is not really internal but external.
I believe that the great success which the Government have had has probably been due as much as anything to the profound common sense, innate stability and fundamental decency of the mass of British people, irrespective of creed or politics; but if the public are met all the time with some exterior crisis to which, no matter how hard they work or how little they consume there is no answer, I believe that we shall undermine the social welfare State which we have set up.
I regret to be forthright here, but I believe that in some cases there is an attempt in parts of the City—the hon. and gallant Member can challenge me on this matter if he wishes—to use this weapon of "hot" money, this weapon of cross-rates, this weapon of movements of goods, to undermine not so much the stability of the country but the stability of the Government, which have been in power for four years only and which in those four years have done more for the mass of the people than any other Government in history.

Colonel Crosthwaite-Eyre: The hon. Member has returned to the same charge as before. Surely he is aware that anyone in the City, whatever his feelings may be, can only obtain the proper exchange rate for any transaction in any currency, and that it is quite impossible for anyone in the City to use money in the way in which the hon. Member has described? If he has any evidence will he please, as I asked him about 10 minutes ago, produce it or withdraw the charge?

Mr. Davies: I qualified my observations by saying "I believe." The attack on the Government economy can take place in two or three different ways. The attack can be on gilt-edged securities; there can be rumours of the devaluation of the dollar. Are there or are there not? There can be attacks on the pound. I believe that up to the devaluation of the pound we had co-operation from the City. The publication of these two articles in the "Financial Times," which are two of the most excellent articles I have ever read on how to dodge the exchanges—I know they are not written with that title—expose—call it exposure if you wish—the method by means of which "hot" money, cross-rates and other kinds of manipulation can undermine the pound. The hon. and gallant Member will have an opportunity to reply and can take me up on that point if he wishes. I do not think that these two articles have done a service to the Government or to the pound sterling. I think that they try to undermine confidence in the pound sterling and in this Government.

8.8 p.m.

Mr. Parkin: The House will be grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Leek (Mr. Harold Davies) for seizing this opportunity to re-introduce this subject in such a broad and well documented way. I hope that the Government will be grateful also for an opportunity perhaps to add a little more to what they have been able to say in the past about this problem of war debts and sterling balances which has been with us for far too long. We begin of course with the fact that the sterling balances are owed to people who undertook to render certain services to us or to supply us with certain commodities in exchange for value.
That was a bargain which was entered into during the stress of war by the predecessors of the present Government, but which the other people have every right to expect shall be honoured. It is no use people lecturing the Government and telling them that they ought to take advantage of Bretton Woods to have these balances scaled down when in fact discussions on that subject must be between ourselves and those who hold the sterling balances, and not with the broad comity of nations which backed Bretton Woods.
I suggest that this problem would perforce have been solved a long time ago—we could never have carried the problem for as long as we have done—but for the fact that by accident it happens that the existence of these sterling balances helps along that broad policy of aid in rehabilitation after the war and assistance to younger nations in their own development plan, a broad policy behind which this Government and the party to which I belong stand and will continue to be in broad support. It is indeed a complete and world approach to the problem of world rehabilitation at the end of the war. It is a mere accident that the debts which were incurred happen to coincide with the need for capital development in some of those countries.
I think we have gone far enough in this matter. My hon. Friend the Member for Leek has given the figures of the extent to which Britain has carried a burden of help to other nations since the end of the war. We are fond of telling the Americans that they must grow up. We exhort the Americans to remember that they are now a great creditor nation and must behave like one. I think we sometimes forget that, as the Leader of the Opposition so mournfully pointed out, we ourselves are a debtor nation, and it is about time we behaved like a debtor nation. We should say to the rest of the Allies, to those who are able to share in this burden, that, although we are prepared to bear our own share of this burden, we canot much longer continue to pay at the rate at which we have been paying in the past.
The problem divides itself roughly into two, because it is a matter of goods so far as we are concerned, and not merely of cash. It is a question of whether we


can supply either capital sterling or consumer goods to the holders of the balances. I think we are entitled to say at Washington, and to the world at large, that although we will accept liability to pay our own reasonable proportion of these balances in sterling, and only in sterling, yet the whole total of them should be regarded as part of the general war effort of the Allies; and what happens to the remainder depends upon the attitude which others of the Allies feel able to take.
Frankly, what that means is that it is desirable that the United States of America should say that they are able to guarantee to some such organisation as the International Monetary Fund the dollar backing necessary if it were possible to come to an arrangement by which the remainder of the burden could be shifted on to such a fund. So far as our obligation is concerned, our own share ought to be paid in sterling, and only in sterling.
I wish to ask the Economic Secretary whether any consideration has been given to the possibility of approaching the holders of these sterling balances and making the sort of trade agreement that has recently been negotiated with other countries where outstanding indebtedness has been brought into the picture; whether it would be possible to make arrangements to draw up lists of essential, desirable and non-essential goods and agree with the holders of the balances that if a percentage is available each year so much shall be spent on consumer goods, provided an equivalent amount is spent from the free sterling which they hold?
In other words out of the purchases of certain types of goods from this country by the countries who are our creditors a certain percentage shall be allowed from the sterling balances each year. We may then contrive to get a reasonable balance between the sort of goods which we can conveniently spare from year to year, because it is most important that we should retain in those countries a market for our consumer goods.
We cannot have it both ways. We cannot shift this responsibility on to the shoulders of the dollar area and still expect our own commercial interests in this country to be unimpaired. We want to

preserve a market for our own consumer goods, and for capital goods if possible where we are very much over burdened at the present time. If we could first of all get agreement of support from our allies, and then an agreement from the holders of the balances to spend a proportion of them in different categories of goods which may be drawn up I think we could come to an agreement on this matter which would be a great relief, not only to the Treasury, but to the people of this country who have a feeling that there is no end to the number of demands which might be put upon them as a result of this long outstanding problem.

8.15 p.m.

Mr. Swingler: We are indebted to the hon. Member for Leek (Mr. Harold Davies) for raising once again this question of war debts. As he said, it has been discussed on a number of occasions in this House since 1945, but we are entitled to go on raising this question, because it is one that has not yet been dealt with properly. We are entitled to underline the extent to which we are suffering today from the costs of war, and from the fact that Britain bore a disproportionate part of the cost of the 1939–45 war. The hon. Member for Leek recalled the famous declaration of President Roosevelt in 1942, when presenting his Lend-Lease Report, in favour of applying the principle of equality of sacrifice to the United Nations; that the burden of the war should be equally and fairly spread by the same sort of fraction of the national incomes of the United Nations being spent on war.
In fact, it has turned out, taking into account Lend-Lease and reverse Lend-Lease, that Great Britain bore a disproportionate burden. If, in fact, that principle of equal sacrifice had been applied, there is due to this country the sum of £6,000 million for what in fact was over-spent if exactly the same fraction of the national income were applied to the Powers that fought against Fascism. That is not my figure, but the figure given by Congressman Herter in his report. There is nothing I wish to add to the analysis so ably outlined by my hon. Friend the Member for Leek, but I want to make a completely different point which, I think, is relevant.
It is not only true that Britain paid a disproportionate amount of the cost of


the Second World War, and has suffered as a consequence of that a piling up of debts and sterling balances—as my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Mr. Parkin) has been discussing—but it is also true that we are already paying a disproportionate amount of the cost of the next war. It should be emphasised that today under the heading of defence, and the meeting of world-wide commitments, and by contributing to arrangements under various Acts and treaties, this country is bearing a disproportionate burden. This country is a heavy d6btor nation as a result of suffering the whole course of two world wars and the enormous losses sustained in the Second World War including over £6,000 million of British overseas investments, as well as the actual physical destruction and the piling up of these debts and so on. It is an amazing situation, therefore, that this country should today be paying a higher proportion of its national income for defence—in the opinion of some people in preparation for the next war—than any other nation in the world except the Dominion of Australia.
According to figures recently published in Report No. 1265 of the United States House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs, which is available to hon. Members, Britain is spending 7.6 per cent. of her national income on defence, compared with an expenditure of 6.4 per cent. by the United States, between 4 per cent. and 5 per cent. by France, 3.2 per cent. by Belgium and 2.0 per cent. by Canada. I quote those figures from memory, but I think that I have quoted them correctly. It is, I think, true that the Australians are spending some 11 per cent. of their national income on defence. It is also true that the Netherlands have a very heavy defence budget this year which I think is roughly the same percentage of national expenditure as the figure for Britain.
What is true—and again this is on the authority of the House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs—is that if an average percentage were struck of expenditure on the defence preparations of all the Atlantic Pact countries, this country could reduce its budget by £147 million. We are spending £147 million more for defence than we would have to spend if President Roosevelt's principle of equality

of sacrifice, worked out in terms of the national income of each country and the amount being spent on defence—that being regarded as a common effort—were applied. We find that the United Kingdom, having suffered the consequences of two world wars, having paid out a higher proportion than the other United Nations for the Second World War and, four years after that war, now bears a heavier burden in its defence budget in relation to its national income than the other countries in the common effort, including countries which are far wealthier and which have far greater resources.
When that situation is appreciated, very little more need be said to account for the British crisis of 1949. We need to go into little more than these results of past wars and the problems arising out of defence in the past, the present and the future, in order to appreciate the position. The problem is aggravated by the fact that the trend is for the cost of war to become heavier. The cost of the last war per day per man equipped was far heavier than the first war, and in the next war it will be a hundred times greater. Anyone who has studied the defence budgets of different nations—and particularly that of this country with its global commitments—knows that the enormous cost that we have to pay is not merely due to our world-wide commitments, because Britain had these Imperial commitments during the inter-war years, but is due to the fact that modern equipment is vastly expensive and rapidly becomes obsolescent. The cost of equipment—of wireless, tanks guns and planes—increases rapidly.
This burden of defence hangs like a millstone round our neck while we struggle to reconstruct after the world upheaval caused by the last war. On this question we must implore the Economic Secretary and his colleagues to become more tough-minded. We cannot continue to bear these burdens. If nothing can be done quickly to apply the principle of equality of sacrifice to the past, something can be done about the present. Something can be done about piling up debts in the present. In view of the criticisms made about the causes of our economic crisis, we are tntitled to demand that in any arrangements, in commonly agreed foreign policies and commonly signed treaties and so on, we should not have to bear a disproportionate part of the cost.
To my mind, we are entitled to demand more than that. We are entitled to demand that we should have to pay less than what is strictly our fair share, because we have borne a disproportionate amount of the cost in the past. We are entitled to say that we should be allowed to pay a smaller fraction of our national income for military preparations than other countries which are better situated or which suffered less from the economic point of view. In any case, we are entitled to demand that this Government should stand up for some kind of fair shares. We are entitled to say that it is wrong in every way that this country in its present situation, in receipt of Marshall Aid, and "carrying the can" as it does in various parts of the world, should have to spend 7.6 per cent. of its national income on defence when the United States spends only 6.4 per cent., Canada only 2.0 per cent. and France only 4.6 per cent.
There are people who say that we should spend more, that we should provide more men for the forces and commit ourselves even further in Western Europe. We are entitled to demand that there should be some form of equal sacrifice in regard to manpower, costs and so on, in connection with that policy, just as we strive to get the application of the principle which was enunciated by the President of the United States of America. That is no reflection on or criticism of American policy. It was, after all, the great American war leader whom we all salute, President Roosevelt, who generously enunciated that principle of equality of sacrifice in the national income in trying to pay for the war—in a way in which wars have not been paid for in the past—as a common war effort. I think we ace entitled to consider this picture as a whole—not merely the sterling balances and how they should be dealt with as a separate problem, or merely the war debts that have piled up, as well as the prospective war debts that may pile up in future—together with the general strain on the economy of the country of payments for past, present and future wars.

8.30 p.m.

The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Douglas Jay): My hon. Friend the Member for Leek (Mr. Harold Davies) has raised this subject in a very

broad fashion, and I have noted what he said and what was said by his hon. Friends; I am sure that others, both in this country and outside, will also note their views.
It is, of course, wholly salutary for it to be constantly pointed out that this country is suffering an enormous burden as the result of the war, indeed as the result of two wars, and that that is in fact one of the main causes, if not the main cause, of our present difficulties. My hon. Friend the Member for Leek spoke of the total of the war debts both internal and external, which we have incurred, and he quoted figures of the entire National Debt as far back as 1914, compared with today. It is true that there has been an enormous increase in the total debt; from a figure in March, 1939, of about £8,280 million, to a figure at this moment of about £26,125 million. The total debt, was actually reduced by approximately £450 million in the last Budget year, as a result of the Budget surplus which we in this country, almost alone in the world, have enjoyed in the last two years. Owing to devaluation, that drop in the nominal total of the debt in sterling has been wiped out at the moment; but, of course, the figure is still less than it would have been if we had not had the Budget surplus.
At the same time, as a result of the policy of this Government in keeping low the interest rates on Government debt, the burden on the present Budget is very much lower than it would otherwise have been. In 1938–39, the annual interest bill falling on the Budget was £216 million, and that has risen in the present year to an estimate of £466 million. If the average rate of interest on the National Debt today was the same as in 1938–39, the annual bill today would be £665 million. Therefore, we have saved the very substantial sum of £200 million in that fashion, and if there are any who advocate higher interest rates for Government debt, they should pause to think what that would mean in added Government expenditure.
My hon. Friend devoted most of his time, quite naturally, to the external debt incurred in the last war, or the sterling balances, as they have come to be called. He argued that, if the burden of paying for the last war had been apportioned on the principle of each country paying in


proportion to its national income, this country would have paid much less than in fact it did pay. He inferred that this country had over-paid in the final settlement that resulted from the war. I think that is a view which is very widely shared in this country. It is not, perhaps, for me to say how widely it is shared outside this country; but it is fair to point out, first of all, that in the Washington communiqué these debts were spoken of as arising out of the common war effort.
It is also true, I think, that the United States Government, in the original Loan of 1945 and the Lend-Lease settlement, and, of course, in the Marshall Aid agreement, to some extent recognised that fact as arising out of the way in which the war had been financed. It is also fair to recall that the Australian and New Zealand Governments have also recognised it by the free gifts which they have made to this country, and which, of course, have had the direct effect of reducing these debts. The Australian Government have made gifts of that kind totalling £36 million and the New Zealand Government has made a gift of £10 million.
I agree with my hon. Friend that the discharge of this debt obligation—the release of sums from these sterling balances—is, of course, a call on the productive resources of this country. I do not quite accept all his figures as I understood them, but it is approximately true that if we reckon up all the gifts and loans which this country has received from the North American continent since the war, and all the aid we have given to other countries, by way of U.N.R.R.A. by way of the European Payments Agreement and in many other forms, the two totals are not so far different from one another. That in itself is an answer to the argument we sometimes hear from the Opposition that this country has been living on foreign aid since the war.
When I listen to some of the speeches made by the Opposition on this subject, and in particular to the speeches of the hon. and gallant Member for the New Forest and Christchurch (Colonel Crosthwaite-Eyre)—who is so sedulous in bringing it to our attention—I often wonder what it is that the Opposition are asking us to do. Some of the speeches of hon. Members opposite create the impression that the Opposition are in favour

of the unilateral repudiation of these obligations.

Colonel Crosthwaite-Eyre: I think that the hon. Gentleman is referring to me at the moment. Can he give a quotation from any of my speeches to substantiate what he says?

Mr. Jay: Yes, I certainly can. In the course of a question addressed to my hon. Friend the Member for Wednesbury (Mr. S. N. Evans) last week, the hon. and gallant Gentleman said:
If the hon. Member will look at the Bretton Woods Agreement he will see that it was not a question of whether we would attempt to do this or that, but that we would undertake a just scaling down."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 15th November, 1949; Vol. 468, c. 1980.]

Colonel Crosthwaite-Eyre: Scaling down, not repudiation.

Mr. Jay: I am very glad to have for the first time a clear statement from the hon. and gallant Member that he is not proposing the unilateral repudiation of these debts.

Colonel Crosthwaite-Eyre: Before I interrupted the hon. Gentleman for the first time he accused me of using the word "repudiation." He has now quoted a phrase of mine in which I said "scaling down." He must agree that the two things are entirely different, and I hope that he will now withdraw the imputation that I used the word "repudiation" in that connection.

Mr. Jay: I am asking the hon. and gallant Gentleman if he will assure me that he has not advocated, and is not advocating, repudiation of these debts; I shall be very happy to have the matter cleared up.

Mr. Emrys Hughes: Is not the debt repudiated by the amount it is scaled down?

Mr. Jay: I think that could be argued, but I believe we are now in agreement that the hon. and gallant Member is not in favour of the repudiation of these debts.

Colonel Crosthwaite-Eyre: The hon. Gentleman can clear up the matter now by withdrawing what he said, that I had suggested that these debts should be repudiated.

Mr. Jay: What I said was that some of the speeches made by the hon. and gallant Gentleman might have created that impression. I am very glad to have his assurance that that is not what he is proposing. But if he and the Opposition are not proposing the repudiation of these obligations, then just what exactly is it that they are recommending? If they are recommending that we should get together with the holders of these balances and that we should seek by agreement to achieve a mutually agreed settlement, that, of course, is precisely what we have done. If that is what the hon. and gallant Member is arguing, however, I think he deceives himself in failing to face this basic hard fact in the situation: namely, that those who hold these balances have not, in fact, hitherto been willing to agree to any scaling down of that kind, apart from the gifts by Australia and New Zealand. The fact is that there is a very deep difference of opinion on this subject between many people in this country on the one hand and the public in the countries which hold the balances on the other hand, in the way in which we look at these obligations. It is no good ignoring that fact. It is one of the basic facts in the situation.
The other night the hon. and gallant Member tried to argue that there was some obligation, as he said, in the Bretton Woods agreement that we had not carried out. In that he was inaccurate in several respects. First—and here I think I am also correcting my hon. Friend the Member for Leek (Mr. Harold Davies)—the Bretton Woods Agreement makes no reference to the sterling balances at all. The only reference to the sterling balances is contained in the Anglo-American Financial Agreement of December, 1945; and I think it is perhaps the coincidence of the dates which misled the hon. and gallant Gentleman. It is Article 10 of the Financial Agreement with the United States. Secondly, that Article does not place any obligation on this country to scale down the balances. What it says is:
The Government of the United Kingdom intends to make agreements with the countries concerned …. The United Kingdom will make every endeavour to secure the early completion of these arrangements.
It should be quite clear that the obligation on this country is not forthwith to scale down these debts, but to seek agree-

ment on the subject. Thirdly, I should like to point out that the expression "scale down" which the hon. and gallant Gentleman used does not appear in the Anglo-American Loan Agreement either.

Mr. William Shepherd: Will the hon. Gentleman read the whole of it?

Mr. Jay: The actual word used is "adjusted." It divides the balances into three parts, and the third part is: balances to be adjusted as a contribution to the settlement of the war debts. I think we ought to get this clear since it was quoted the other night.

Colonel Crosthwaite-Eyre: I should like to know what is the actual technical difference which the hon. Gentleman puts between "adjusting" and "scaling down."

Mr. Jay: The hon. and gallant Gentleman understands the English language just as well as I do, and I should have thought that "scaling down" and "adjustment" do not mean the same thing.

Mr. Shepherd: Would the hon. Gentleman read the whole of Article 10 so that we can see exactly what His Majesty's Government undertook to do?

Mr. Jay: It would take a very long time if I read the whole Article, but broadly speaking it starts by saying:
The Government of the United Kingdom intends to make agreements with the countries concerned … covering the sterling balances 
and later on it says that these settlements
will be on the basis of dividing these accumulated balances into three categories.
The first is to be released at once, the second is to be similarly released by instalments, and the third is to be adjusted. It finally says—and these are the crucial words:
The Government of the United Kingdom will make every endeavour to secure the early completion of these arrangements.
It follows, I think, that if we accept the two facts, which I gather the hon. and gallant Gentleman does accept, first that none of us—

Mr. Parkin: May I interrupt my hon. Friend? It may be true that the hon. and gallant Member for New Forest and Christchurch (Colonel Crosthwaite-Eyre) gives the impression, wherever he is, that


he is advocating the repudiation of sterling debts, but in fact he has not spoken tonight. Could my hon. Friend flatter him a little less, by not answering a speech he has not made, and pay some attention to the statesmanlike proposals of my hon. Friend the Member for Leek (Mr. Harold Davies)?

Mr. Jay: I was just coming to that. To give credit where it is due, however, the hon. and gallant Member has made more speeches on this subject, taken by and large, than have my hon. Friends.
If it is agreed that none of us is in favour of the repudiation of these agreements, and if it is also accepted that the countries concerned have not hitherto agreed to the scaling down of the debts, there are, I think, only two practical courses open to us. The first of these courses has been to leave the question of principle for the moment unsettled, and to make temporary arrangements for the release of certain amounts of the balances year by year.
If this is agreed, the immediate question becomes, in effect, how large the release should be in each case, and how rapidly it should be made. When we come to consider that, in relation to one country or another, I think we have to take into account the factors put forward by my hon. Friend the Member for Leek and, indeed, certain other factors. First, we have to remember that a large proportion of these balances represents the monetary reserves of the countries concerned. Secondly, I think we have to take into account the point mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Mr. Parkin)—the immediate and important needs of some of the countries holding the balances, both for food supplies and for the supply of raw materials; in the case of India, these have been very vital. We have also to remember their need for capital development, which is essential if some of the less-developed countries of the Commonwealth are to build up their productive capacity and are, in the end, to render us less dependent on dollar supplies.
Another important fact which we have to take into account is how far, by release of balances from this country and release of British exports at the same time, we can save dollars by enabling these Commonwealth countries to buy fewer

American goods. At the moment that is a particularly important factor because the whole Commonwealth is making an effort to economise dollars and to take British goods instead. The next factor mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud is also important, when he said that to some extent a steady release of these balances helps to build up, in the long term, an export trade from this country to other Commonwealth countries.

Mr. Harold Davies: The "Economic Bulletin" for Europe emphasises the point which the hon. Gentleman has made and from which he is now passing. I should like to know if, at any time, we have discussed this matter with the Commonwealth or the sterling area, because the "Economic Bulletin" said:
If the sterling area countries, other than the United Kingdom, had kept the volume of their imports from North America at the 1938 level they would have had a surplus of over 300 million dollars instead of a deficit of 450 million dollars.
I do not accept it as possible to keep at the 1938 level, but has there been any tendency to encourage them to keep at a reasonable level of purchases?

Mr. Jay: Of course there has been a continuous tendency. As my hon. Friend knows, the main purpose of the Commonwealth Conference in July of this year was to agree jointly between all the sterling area Commonwealth countries that their imports of dollar goods should be reduced by 25 per cent.; and, of course, in order to enable some of them to do that it is necessary to supply British goods instead; that is precisely the point I was making. If all those factors are taken into account, and considered in relation to each separate negotiation, it becomes possible to reach some agreement as to how large a release should be made. The Chancellor stated clearly in the recent Debate that it is the intention of the Government to aim at curtailing these releases from now onwards, as each of the agreements is made from time to time, in order to attempt to reduce the strain on the productive resources of this country.
The other main practical course open to us is to study this problem in general with the two dollar countries, the United States of America and Canada; and that we have undertaken to do in conjunction


with those two countries in the recent Washington communique. Those discussions will start very soon. Finally, I will answer my hon. Friend's question. In what spirit shall we approach those discussions? I would say that we shall approach those discussions with an entirely open mind, in the hope of reaching a solution which is in the best interests of all the countries concerned.

8.51 p.m.

Colonel Crosthwaite-Eyre: I feel that I must apologise to the hon. Member for Leek (Mr. Harold Davies) and the hon. Member for Stroud (Mr. Parkin) for the fact that the speech that I would have made has been answered already. I can only say that the answer has proved as unsatisfactory as I thought it would. This occasion is like many other occasions in that the Financial Secretary to the Treasury and the Economic Secretary will never face the issue at all. They start by misquoting, as the hon. Gentleman did who tried to attribute to me the word "repudiate," although I have never used it in this matter; they then utter a certain number of pleasant platitudes, and sit down.
I hope that this being the second Debate of this nature within eight days, we may at least impress the Government with one thing. It is that, whereas in the past it may often have been only hon. Members on this side of the House who have raised this question, now hon. Members opposite do so; and tonight three hon. Members opposite have spoken one after another on this subject. I hope that all the old taunts that have been thrown at this side of the House—and the Financial Secretary taunted us last week—to the effect that we would strive to drive a wedge between this country and the Commonwealth, that this was a Tory plot against the stability of the £, and all the rest of it, will now be forgotten, and that at last the Treasury will realise that this is a subject which commands respect in all quarters of the House, and that it has nothing to do with the machinations of the party machines.
Let us go to the roots of the problem. The hon. Gentleman has made much play with all those negotiations which, he says, may or may not have to go on,

and all the rest of it, in order to achieve a settlement. He said that the Anglo-American Loan Agreement did not commit us to anything. But let us, for once, try to face the situation realistically. How did these debts arise? We are agreed, I think, that they arose because, during the war, we, as the principal partner in the sterling area, were determined that no financial consideration should stand in our way in bringing troops and material to bear at the crucial point at the right moment. That was the only thing we thought of. But at that time we did make it clear in the Coalition Government—and the hon. Gentleman knows it as well as I do—that there was to be no question, when the bill came to be settled after the war, that just because we brought those troops and that material to bear we should be the sole payers of it. If the hon. Gentleman is honest, the next time he speaks from that Box he will say that under the Coalition Government the express reservation was made that, at the end of the war, it should be up to us, whichever country might be the holder of these balances, to arrive, without any further palaver or discussion, at a just settlement of who provided what to whose benefit.

Mr. Jay: By agreement.

Colonel Crosthwaite-Eyre: If the hon. Gentleman agrees, all I can say is that half his speech tonight—

Mr. Jay: By agreement, I said.

Colonel Crosthwaite-Eyre: By agreement, certainly. Now let us go a stage further. The hon. Gentleman says that it was by agreement, but again, if he looks at the records in the Treasury, he will see that it was our undoubted right to submit counter-claims for what we had done. I have asked a great many Questions on this, and as far as I am aware the Government have never yet submitted a counter-claim, and have certainly never pressed for one to be accepted. Every time they have ridden off, as the hon. Gentleman has ridden off tonight, on this phrase "By agreement."
If the hon. Gentleman looks back at what I have said, even tonight, he will see that it was the duty of His Majesty's Government—leaving aside the Anglo-American Financial Agreement and all


other considerations—whoever might be in power at the end of the war, immediately to submit counter-claims so that a just balancing of these debts might be effected. The fact is that His Majesty's Government have never done it. They have always ridden off it; they have always striven to make it appear as though, before we could do anything to settle these debts, we had to secure the agreement of the other countries concerned. I suggest that that is absolute nonsense; that we were the people who had the right to submit counter-claims; that we were the people who had the right to say what we thought was a just balance; and that, far from the other country having to be consulted and cozened in some way into an agreement, it was up to us to make the settlement, and up to us to see that a just decision was reached.

Mr. Jay: I am not quite clear what the hon. and gallant Gentleman is arguing. Is he arguing that the agreement of the other country was not necessary to the settlement, or is he not?

Colonel Crosthwaite-Eyre: That, I think, is to beg the argument.

Mr. Jay: It is not.

Colonel Crosthwaite-Eyre: It is. What I am saying is that as I understand it from what the hon. Gentleman has said tonight—just as he has often said before—we cannot enter into any settlement unless the other country will permit us to broach the subject.

Mr. Jay: indicated dissent.

Colonel Crosthwaite-Eyre: But that is what he has said tonight.

Mr. Jay: I do not know how to make it clearer. I am merely saying that one cannot reach agreement between two parties unless both sides agree to the settlement.

Colonel Crosthwaite-Eyre: Well, that at least is an advance for which I am very grateful. Up to now the hon. Gentleman has always said, "How can we settle these debts until the other country agrees to communicate with us and discuss a settlement?" I have asked, not only the Economic Secretary but his right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor

of the Exchequer, what counter-claims have been submitted, and as far as I know I am still safe in saying that the Government have never been able to say that they have submitted one counter-claim.

Mr. Jay: I do not want to interrupt too much, but the hon. and gallant Gentleman must know that there was a very large counter-claim against India on account of various defence matters which was settled and duly paid, with agreement on both sides.

Colonel Crosthwaite-Eyre: Again, if I may say so, the hon. Gentleman is riding off the one question that really matters. That particular claim had nothing to do with sterling balances, but was entirely concerned with static barracks in India, which were not necessary to us and which—as in the case of those in Egypt which were in exactly the same position—were paid for by the Government concerned. But that has nothing to do with this overriding question of sterling balances and their diminution, or adjustment, or scaling down, whichever term the hon. Gentleman chooses, in effecting a just settlement.

Mr. Jay: I must make this clear. The balance was, in fact, written down as a result of acceptance of that claim, and therefore, clearly, it has been settled.

Colonel Crosthwaite-Eyre: No. They took over the physical assets. There was no writing down at all. They merely got physical assets for a certain sum of money. There was no acknowledgement that a sum of money should be written down because we had defended Egypt with the Eighth Army or India with the Fourteenth Army. All that happened was that His Majesty's Government sold barracks and other installations for sterling; but there was no acknowledgement in either case, either by the Indians or by the Egyptians, that they had in fact received services from His Majesty's Forces which they should recognise by acknowledging that they owed us money, resulting in a scaling down of the debts.

Mr. Orbach: Because the Egyptians did not want to be saved.

Colonel Crosthwaite-Eyre: That may be so, but we certainly saved them. I was there at the time. The hon. Member may know certain Egyptians who did not want to be saved, but I knew quite a number


who did. I think that he would find it hard to prove that that was the official view of the Egyptian Government.
Let me get back to the point that we were discussing. His Majesty's Government, from the very start, whether under the Anglo-American Loan Agreement or under what was said at the time of the Coalition Government during the war, were committed to the scaling down of these debts to a just balance. His Majesty's Government have not done a thing to try to implement either what they had the right to do under the agreements of the Coalition Government or the obligation to do under the Anglo-American Loan Agreement. They have not done a thing. The have merely released these balances.
I think it is right that we should try tonight to go one stage further and see why they have done that. I am quite certain why they have done it. The hon. Member for Leek and the hon. Member for Stroud hinted at it when they said that there was in fact a certain amount of our exports which we could afford to allow to go without getting anything in return. The truth is much deeper. His Majesty's Government did not really care what they gave away or what they sold, provided they could maintain a facade of full employment. They were perfectly prepared to make releases, which would in fact mean that whatever it might cost the country in the future, there would be no unemployment in this country. That is all they have done.
I think we have to allow, particularly in regard to India and other such countries, that the Government ' have enabled this full productivity to be maintained purely by releasing money in order to enable those countries to buy from us. They know that we get no return. If the Government are sincere in what they say about this crisis, why do they allow these unrequited exports to go abroad? They must know that it is far better to face the fact that we can only sell goods if we get something in return, rather than allow this to go on.
I saw only yesterday a leaflet produced by Transport House dealing with productivity, and saying how much better off we are than we were after the First World War or, alternatively, in relation to Europe; but there is no other country in Europe that has the quantity of un-

requited exports that we have. There is no other country that bolsters up its production figures by shoving stuff abroad irrespective of whether it brings anything in return or not. I suggest to the hon. Gentleman that at long last, when he gets three hon. Members on his side of the House rising to speak on this matter——

Mr. Harold Davies: I do not want to be drawn into this argument as though I were putting forward this rather peculiar suggestion that I felt that we were doing this to maintain full employment at any cost. There is an important point here. This country has always been well-known for honouring its obligations, and I am not saying that we should blindly repudiate them. I am after a balanced and dispassionate discussion of the situation, and I do not want to be accused from the other side of being one of the people who would help to shatter both the sterling area and the British Empire and Commonwealth by doing what the hon. and gallant Member opposite is suggesting.
Colonel Crosthwaite-Eyre: I was quoting the hon. Member for Stroud on this question of unrequited exports. So far as the question of honouring our obligations is concerned, I have dealt with that already, and no one is less anxious than I am that we should repudiate a debt. I have made it quite clear what we should do. We have not only the right but the obligation to make a just settlement.

Mr. Julius Silverman: Does that mean repudiating a part?

Colonel Crosthwaite-Eyre: I hope the hon. Member will look at what I have said, because it would be foolish for me again to go over the ground. I will conclude in the hope that the next time we have a Debate on this subject the Government will try to give an answer to this simple question: why have they done nothing concrete about these debts, and why are they allowing unrequited exports, which are such a drag on our economy at the present time and can produce nothing in return?

9.6 p.m.

Mr. Maurice Webb: I should have preferred to catch Mr. Speaker's eye before the Economic


Secretary spoke, because I wanted to put one or two points to him, but I am glad to have this opportunity to take up one or two matters referred to by the hon. and gallant Member for the New Forest and Christchurch (Colonel Crosthwaite-Eyre). I tried to understand why the hon. and gallant Member was almost simmering with indignation, but I could not find out why until his last few sentences. Apparently, this is an opportunity to accuse the Government again of deliberately doing this wicked thing of maintaining full employment. I do not accept the hon. and gallant Member's explanations at all, but even if it is right, surely it is not a bad thing for a Government to try to bring about full employment? Surely that is a desirable thing to do. For myself, I would not necessarily exclude all those things the hon. and gallant Member mentioned if, in fact, they were necessary to maintain the full working of our economy.
The hon. and gallant Member's recollections of what the Coalition Government did may be better than mine. I was not a Member at that time, but I do not remember at all vividly the Government of that day entering into the kind of arrangements he has suggested. My recollection is that the House of Commons at that time wanted everything possible to be done to win the war. It is not at all clear that we entered into certain commitments, and I should like to hear something in support of the statement that we did, in fact, undertake to put in counter claims. In any case, the trouble about such arrangements is that subsequent Governments have to apply them in the circumstances of today.
One of the troubles of this Government has been that it has had to fulfil far too many unfulfillable obligations and pledges, far too many pledges that have been inherently insoluble—I could give a whole range of things, of which this is undoubtedly one. I think that the whole arrangement about sterling balances was far too loose and careless, and that a complaint which could legitimately be made against the previous Government is that they did not enter into the specific arrangements mentioned by the hon. and gallant Member, which would have been a reasonable thing to do. They could well have said, "We are helping you win

the war, and in return you will have to pay us for all the assistance we are giving you."
That was not done, and this Government, therefore, had to face the situation in an atmosphere of reality, conscious of the political realities of the situation. It would be hopeless for us to make any impossible demands in negotiations of this kind, and it is to our credit that, in spite of our overwhelming burdens and difficulties, we have tried to reach an understanding that is workable. We must, in the end, come back to the fact that there must be agreement on the proposals put up; otherwise, what sanction should we have? What possible sanction does the hon. and gallant Member suggest is at our disposal to compel an unwilling partner? In the end, even the Conservative Party must face reality and the reality is the stark facts of the situation.
I want to make one or two points for my hon. Friend the Economic Secretary to think about and he may answer them at some other time. I think it is wrong to attempt to look at this problem of sterling balances by itself. It has to be considered against the whole background of our post-war obligations. I am glad to think that in previous speeches we related this problem to the graver problem of Defence expenditure. That is a very important element in the picture. We never hear any suggestions from the other side of the House that it would be reasonable to expect someone to come in and help us to carry some of this heavy Defence expenditure.
That is a point we must have in mind and I believe the time is rapidly coming when this Government, or its successor, will have to come forward on an appropriate occasion and say that the problem is quite intolerable and cannot be sustained; that it is imposing on us a burden which we are not capable of sustaining. It should be related to the whole question of sterling balances.

Mr, Geoffrey Cooper: Would my hon. Friend put in the same category the £3,000 million of these debts which are outstanding and are equally intolerable?

Mr. Webb: I can see the point made by my hon. Friend. I say that the whole picture should be considered together. I


think it wrong to pick out a piece and to try to solve that part of the problem, because in that way we do not solve anything. I was in America during the Recess and I found the most appalling ignorance of the realities of our situation. I do not know why that is so. It may be that many have gone over there and forgotten their duty to their own country.
There is an almost complete lack of understanding of the kind of sacrifices we are bearing today. Today I recorded talks to America in a radio station and had to stop in order that I could explain what unrequited exports are. The commentator said they have not the slightest idea of what unrequited exports are. They know what unrequited affection is but they do not know unrequited exports. In some way we have failed to show to them that so far from indulging ourselves with Marshall Aid, we have sacrificed much on the other side of the balance sheet and are making an enormous balancing contribution. In order to strengthen our effort I press the Economic Secretary to give to all sections in the United States some indication of the other side of the balance sheet—to tell them about unrequited exports and all the other things we are giving.
I listened to the Economic Secretary on sterling balances. One point which he did not touch on was the type of goods we are now exporting in the form of unrequited exports. I have reason to believe that it is possible for us within the global amounts involved in this arrangement to help ourselves economically by sending other types of goods, or goods different from those which we are now sending in some cases. I think we are much too careless in considering that side of the question. If greater discrimination could be shown in the type of goods at our disposal it would be to our advantage.
In general, I say that it really is not reasonable for Members on the other side of the House to suggest that this desperately difficult and delicate situation is somehow the responsibility of this Government. It is inherent in the situation that arose out of the war, and for my part I am satisfied that on the whole the approach of the Government towards a solution has been a good one and to the best advantage of this nation.

Orders of the Day — EDIBLE FATS

9.15 p.m.

Major Legge-Bourke: I should be less than polite if I did not begin by thanking the right hon. Lady the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food for coming to the House especially as she has had to come some considerable distance. I am grateful to her, and I hope that we may at least start this Debate in a slightly more propitious frame of mind than on the last occasion when she replied to an Adjournment Debate in which I had spoken. We have had an interesting discussion on the matter of a debt of a sort. During the course of it the hon. Member for Central Bradford (Mr. Webb) said that the Conservative Party must face realities. I hope that the right hon. Lady will assist me in that task this evening.
I want to try to find out what is the real situation regarding a certain type of fat. We were discussing vegetable fats yesterday, and I think the situation was generally agreed to be far from satisfactory. Tonight I wish to speak about another type of fat, animal fat known under the trade name of tallow. But before I come to that I wish to speak about animal fats of all types, including butter, margarine and lard.
I have been endeavouring to discover what is the total consumption per year in the country and from the official statistics—I have tried to keep entirely to them—I deduce that we consume 865,400 tons of butter, lard and margarine together. This year to the end of September we have consumed about 505,900 tons of these same three fats. In these same months we have produced at home 112,650 tons of butter, margarine and cooking fats, which are also compounded with other oils, and we have imported, too, 295,900 tons. That makes a total of home production and imports of 408,550 tons. But we have consumed 505,900 tons. Therefore, I take it that the balance must have come from last year's stocks and would have amounted to about 97,350 tons.
I do not know what stocks were at the beginning of the year and I hope that the right hon. Lady will at least give me that figure—I understand why she cannot give the day to day and week to week stocks—so that we can then see how much has been available for the nine


months of this year compared with the same period last year. We have produced 35,750 tons more at home and imported 66,400 tons more from abroad. We have now available 102,150 tons more butter, lard and margarine than we had last year from what I can deduce from the official figures.
I have calculated that, assuming that the population which receives a fat ration to be about 40 million, to honour the nine-ounce ration of these fats takes about 100,400 tons. To make a Christmas bonus of four ounces takes about 35,500 tons. That still leaves from that surplus of 102,150 tons 64,900 tons extra compared with what we had last year. And there is still three months of the year to go. But that figure of 64,900 represents about two-thirds of the total amount of fat which it takes to honour the nine-ounce fat ration of butter, lard and margarine.
In other words, what I contend is that the right hon. Lady now has sufficient fat in hand to increase the basic ration very considerably straight away. I hope, if she accepts the figures I am putting forward—and I can assure her I have calculated them entirely from the official figures—that she will be able to announce at the end of this Debate that she is prepared, not merely to give a Christmas bonus, but also to increase the basic fat ration.
Where does the imported fat come from? I do not propose to deal at any length with butter, save to say that Australia, New Zealand and Denmark are the main suppliers and that whereas in 1947 we obtained about 200,000 tons short of the million from Australia, in the first nine months of this year we have already very handsomely exceeded the million mark and that is about the same figure as in 1948. We have increased the amount from Denmark by 400,000 tons over 1947. The amount is slightly less in 1948. We do not import margarine at all, so far as I can gather, but we do make it mainly from imported fats. If I am wrong I hope that the right hon. Lady will correct me.
Many of those imported fats come under the heading of tallow, although I think there are added other fats and oils of various other sorts, even vegetable oils in some cases. But there is a proportion

of edible fats, animal fats, and it is that subject on which I have questioned both the right hon. Lady and the Minister quite recently in this House. The best quality of that imported edible fat we obtain in considerable quantities from New Zealand, Australia and the Argentine. In 1948 we got about 7,500 tons from New Zealand and this year, according to an answer given me last week by the Minister, we have imported over 11,700 tons. That is a very big increase indeed. From Australia the increase is even bigger, although unfortunately the figures given me by the Minister cover the season from July to June instead of from January to September and therefore they are not a strict comparison. But whereas in the 1947–48 season we got 2,300 tons, in the 1948–49 season we had 9,600.
I am only too glad to see this increased reliance which we are placing upon those two great Dominions, and we ought to say nothing tonight to make those two Dominions feel that we are not grateful to them for allowing us to have these fats. At the same time, I think it should be known that the prices we were paying to them were far in excess of the prices offered by practically every other country with the exception of the Argentine. I hope that the right hon. Lady will be able to tell me what is the amount we have imported this year from the Argentine. Last year we got about 24,500 tons of edible fats from the Argentine and 6,300 tons of inedible fats, and if we have had anything approximating to the same amount as we had last year, then it does seem that we have had a very big increase in imports from those three countries which I have mentioned.
I know that the Minister and the right hon. Lady do not like disclosing prices in this House, and therefore all I can do is to cite prices which I understand are being charged. Whether the right hon. Lady will be able to confirm them I do not know, but I hope that she will. I understand that in October, 1948, the Argentine prices went up to approximately £140 a ton—I use the word "approximately" because there is a considerable range of about 19 different grades of fat, and there is a variation of about £30 in the prices. At that time the United States were buying at prices well below £100, and eventually they fell


to below £50. In Australia the local controlled price was considerably lower than £100.
In the case of one fat, which I mentioned to the right hon. Lady in a delightful conversation which she invited me to have with her in reply to one of my Questions, she paid £100 a ton when it would have fetched only £50 a ton in Australia itself. I believe that there are 19 set brands and that until October prices ranged between £121 and £96. After devaluation, which put up the prices in dollar area, the prices dropped to a range between £88 and £70. That is the information which I have got and I hope that the Minister will confirm or correct it.
I am the first to want to give the Dominions a better price than other people. I think that we should always do that, but it seems to me that an increase of something above £50 over what was being offered by others is slightly excessive. At least—and here I am only too glad to say "Thank you"—it has secured for us a considerable increase in our imports of tallow.
But having got that tallow, what did the Ministry do? There was one shipment of about 1,700 tons from the Argentine in February which was not offered to soap manufacturers until September. It was only offered to them then because it was no longer edible although it was imported as edible tallow. If we are to produce the finest quality white soap, rancid fat is not very much use, because while acidity can be eliminated from fat. rancidity cannot. It is possible to manufacture only pink soap with rancid fat, and that does not sell nearly so well in the dollar markets. I do not want to plead the case of the soap manufacturers tonight, because I understand that they have managed to make perfectly satisfactory arrangements, but I want to point out that rancid fat bought from a nondollar area will not be exportable to a dollar area where we should like to send it, because it will not be of a sufficiently high quality to be able to obtain a market.
In yesterday's "Daily Express" Beachcomber commented on the Minister's definition of "technical purposes." I noticed that he fell into what is perhaps a natural error when he said that if edible fat, which is perhaps not quite so edible

as it was earlier, is manufactured into soap and other articles, then perhaps we shall next be told that soap is edible and that it has many useful vitamins. I am afraid that that is not true and that we must face the fact that fat imported at high prices for edible purposes and then stored for long periods by the Ministry, after which it is offered to the manufacturers of soap, will inevitably involve this country in some loss. That must be so. because the price for inedible fat is considerably below the price for edible fat.
.I understand that this particular consignment was bought at about £102 per ton, and that it is now being offered at that price to the manufacturers, when the current price is round about £80 per tons for incoming fat of similar quality. I hope the right hon. Lady will be able to sell it, but it is obviously going to be extremely difficult to get rid of it. Perhaps she will be able to tell us tonight that she has got rid of it.
Another consignment was offered to the Ministry last August at a price of £110 per ton, but was refused. Permission was given by the Ministry to offer that fat elsewhere, and the highest price that could be obtained was £50 in Rotterdam, which was not considered good enough by those who were trying to sell it. It was therefore re-offered to the Ministry with another parcel at the beginning of September, and the Ministry bought it at £110 per ton. It seems to me that that cannot be classed as very good business from the Ministry's point of view.
There was the case of another 463 tons from New Zealand which came in during the summer, and, when I put this matter to the Minister on 7th November, the right hon. Gentleman denied that it had gone bad, though on the 14th November he admitted that it was of low keeping quality and was being offered for non-edible purposes. Obviously, that is no longer edible fat, although it was earlier; it was high quality mutton fat from New Zealand.
I want to ask the right hon. Lady why so high a price was paid in comparison with American and European prices, and, secondly, how long the Ministry of Food hold the fat in store, because there seems to be evidence that, as a result of long storage, it is going bad and edible fat is being reduced to a condition in which it


is no longer edible. I also want to know why there was such a long delay in offering the two parcels I have mentioned for non-technical purposes, because I assume that some inspection is carried out of the edible fat which is kept in store, and it seems to me that, if the inspection was carried out properly its condition should be noted and the stock disposed of at once.
Most of all, I want to know why the right hon. Gentleman does not increase the fat ration if the figures which I gave at the beginning of my remarks are correct. I once placed the right hon. Lady in the rô le of Justice, but tonight I want to warn the country that she may be directing her activities towards the rô le of "Queen Wenceslas" but delaying that rô le until a little bit nearer the General Election. I hope not; I hope she will not do that sort of thing, because I think it is very important, and I am sure she would agree, that we should increase as soon as we possibly can increase the basic ration of fats. I believe that this is one of the rations which have been so short that it has been noted by some people as being a greater hardship than anything save perhaps meat.
If the right hon. Lady would cease to hold for quite so long what stocks the Ministry now has, and if she would get them on to the market, she would be doing not merely a good turn to the housewife but an immensely beneficial act to British industry, because I believe it is the fats in their rations which increase the stamina and energy of men to a degree only second to meat. Therefore, I hope she will do what she can to prevent any delay in distribution any longer than is absolutely necessary, because every day which she holds it back unnecessarily means output lost to British industry.

9.34 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food (Dr. Edith Summer-skill): The hon. and gallant Member for the Isle of Ely (Major Legge-Bourke) agreed that he gave me short notice of this Debate, and, although he knows that I am only too happy to be here, even when I hear of a Debate on the Adjournment Motion at short notice, he must realise that I am placed at a great disadvantage when, in a Debate like this, he raises a matter which has no relation

at all to the original Question which he put down. That was answered by my right hon. Friend and was followed up by the hon. and gallant Gentleman giving notice that he would raise this matter on the Motion for the Adjournment.
This is the Adjournment, I understand, which follows the Question put down by the hon. and gallant Gentleman concerning the allegation which he made that during the summer certain tallow was landed in this country and became rancid—deteriorated—because it was not handled expeditiously. The hon. and gallant Gentleman was not satisfied with the answer given my right hon. Friend, and he said, quite rightly, that he would raise the matter on the Adjournment. Then, at very short notice this afternoon, the hon. and gallant Gentleman asked Mr. Speaker if he could have the second Adjournment. I naturally thought that the hon. and gallant Gentleman would raise the matter which he mentioned in the Question.
It amazes me that he should come here tonight and, far from showing the courtesy that I had expected of addressing himself to the Question which we both had in mind, should raise the question of a Christmas bonus of fat, a matter, he must agree, far removed from rancid tallow. I have no doubt that his constituents would much prefer to read about a Christmas bonus of fat than about rancid tallow, but the hon. and gallant Gentleman must realise that I cannot possibly come here tonight and immediately disclose our stocks of fats, and, furthermore, speculate on increased rations. He must surely realise that only recently my right hon. Friend made a statement on Christmas bonuses, and that I cannot announce on an Adjournment Debate a week or two later, an increased Christmas bonus, in answer to his request.
The hon. and gallant Gentleman asked me to be realistic. I am. I must charge him tonight with being completely unrealistic, and I ask him once more to address himself to the question of tallow, which, if I may say so with respect, has rather obsessed him during the last month or two. He has put Question after Question on that matter, and I can assure him that the officials in my Department, my right hon. Friend and myself have done our very best to answer him.
I suspect the source of his information—our knowledge of these things is very wide—but unfortunately the person who has given it to him has not given him the whole background of our tallow negotiations. There is nothing sinister about them, and nothing that we are anxious to hide. On the occasion to which the hon. and gallant Gentleman referred as, I think, the "delightful" or "charming" conversation he had with me behind Mr. Speaker's Chair, I once more tried to help him and to clarify his mind.
I will tell him once more what is the position. I can only deal with general principles. He will realise that I cannot go into all the very detailed figures without consulting certain files which can, of course, only be found in my Department. We import our tallow from soft currency areas. He has mentioned again tonight the price in dollar areas—in the United States of America—and he has asked me to relate the prices which we are paying in soft currency areas to the prices he has quoted for the United States. But he must realise that the prices which he has quoted have no relevance to our purchases. How can they have?
On the one hand, we are trying to save dollars, and therefore we are not concerned with the prices in the United States. He must also recognise that the United States are self-sufficient so far as fats are concerned. They certainly wish to export them, because at the moment there is a surplus owing to the price, and the United States certainly do not need to import fats. The dollar problem is one which affects many countries which need fats. So, of course, we are not concerned with dollar prices. What we are concerned with are the supplies in New Zealand, Australia, the Argentine and certain South American countries. We import 56 per cent. of our total imports from New Zealand, the principal source, 22 per cent. from Australia, and 22 per cent. from the Argentine and a few South American countries. We buy from Australia and New Zealand their total export surpluses at prices which we negotiate in each September for the ensuing year.
The hon. and gallant Gentleman has asked before how these prices relate to the world price. There is no world price. The price can only be related to the supply position. He asked why the price fluctuates. I have told him before, and

will do so again, that we try to be very fair to our friends in the Dominions. The prices in the Argentine in the past have been much higher than the prices asked in Australia and New Zealand. We recognise that Australia and New Zealand, while making an adequate profit, have treated us very fairly, and at no time have we felt it wise, prudent or just to try to keep the Australians and New Zealanders down to the lowest level. That and the supply position are the reasons why the price has fluctuated.
The shipments from Australia during the last few years have increased because the Australian meat programme has expanded, but during 1947–48 there was a drought, the production of meat decreased and the result was that the tallow imports decreased with it. In fact, we were only importing something like 2,300 tons during that year against 9,600 tons in 1948–49. The hon. and gallant Gentle-man asked me how much we had imported. I have given him the percentages; the total import during this year—that is, from 1st January to 30th September, 1949—was 11,777 tons; that is, of edible tallow from New Zealand, Australia, the Argentine and Uruguay.
Now we come to what I thought the hon. and gallant Gentleman was going to address himself to with even more vigour, and that is the keeping quality of the tallow and whether it has deteriorated to such an extent that we could be charged with gross mismanagement. I do not think I am wrong in inferring that that is what the hon. and gallant Gentleman thinks. Let me give him the figures. Of 11,777 tons of edible tallow which have come in this year, only 511 tons have been transferred to stocks of technical tallow. Technical tallow is tallow for soap making, leather work and so on. Perhaps the hon. and gallant Gentleman would like me to break those figures down; 463 tons of this came from New Zealand, 24 tons from East Africa and 24 tons from Australia. He is quite right when he says that we sell inedible at £102 per ton, but if it is fit for edible use we sell at £104 per ton. So the hon. and gallant Member will agree that the loss is not very great.
Edible tallow, of course, is not of uniform keeping quality; I am quite sure that his informant has told him that. A good quality edible tallow might keep


for six months, but a sub-standard tallow would not. Of course, we cannot always ensure that the keeping quality is as high as we should like. I might say—and I want to be quite fair to the hon. and gallant Gentleman because sometimes his figures are correct—that although only 511 tons of tallow have been transferred during this year, there would be some left over from the preceding year, about which I shall say something in a minute. The consignment that came during the summer about which the hon. and gallant Gentleman asked in one of his Questions—was the one which came from New Zealand—arrived during the dock strike and was unduly delayed. I think that probably a month elapsed during which it was difficult to discharge the ships.
But there has been other tallow of which we have tried to dispose—and again I think this is in the hon. and gallant Member's mind—which came to us under the Andes Agreement from the Argentine. That quantity was sub-standard and we refused to accept it as edible. I want the hon. and gallant Gentleman to understand that it came to us as sub-standard and we refused to accept it. We asked a firm to use some of this quantity for certain technical purposes and only one firm refused—probably for the reasons that the hon. and gallant Member quite rightly gave: that you can make coloured soaps out of some of this tallow which has deteriorated whereas you cannot make white soaps. This was not wasted; another firm took it and used it for very good purposes.

Major Legge-Bourke: Can the right hon. Lady give me the price?

Dr. Summerskill: I have given the prices. We sell at £102 10s. when it is not fit for edible use and £104 when it is fit for edible use.
That is the whole story. I will look at the hon. and gallant Member's speech

again tomorrow to see whether there are any other detailed figures which would help him, but I want him to go away from this Debate reassured that we are conducting this business on the best possible lines. It is a difficult business; we are dealing with a perishable commodity. We are dealing with our friends in soft currency areas—men who are well-known to us, whom we can trust and who do their best to supply this country with a good quality commodity.
We cannot always anticipate a dock strike, however, and we cannot always anticipate that we might have a consignment of sub-standard tallow We have to deal with it, therefore, in a certain way. I am sure the hon. and gallant Member will agree with me that the longer one lives the more one realises that there are always two sides to a question. He may be given a story about sub-standard tallow and somebody may say, "This shows how inefficient is the Ministry of Food; you must raise this in the House." But nobody tells him that sometimes substandard tallow reaches these shores from another country and we, as the purchaser, protest against it and make arrangements for other tallow to come here in exchange. That is what happened with the consignment the hon. and gallant Member mentioned. I hope the hon. and gallant Member will leave here happier tonight. I can assure him that if he is not satisfied. I am only too happy to help him.

Major Legge-Bourke: Could the right hon. Lady give me one more figure? It was mentioned in a Question I asked earlier. What were the stocks at 1st January this year?

Dr. Summerskill: I am afraid I could not give the hon. and gallant Member that figure.

Adjourned accordingly at Eleven Minutes to Ten o'Clock.